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THE  RELATION  BETWEEN  RELIGION 

AND  SCIENCE:  A  BIOLOGICAL 

APPROACH 


A  DISSERTATION 

SUBMITTED   TO   THE    FACULTY 

OF   THE   GRADUATE    SCHOOL   OF    ARTS   AND   LITERATURE 

IN   CANDIDACY   FOR   THE   DEGREE    OF 

DOCTOR   OF   PHILOSOPHY 

DEPAKT.MKNT  OF  SYSTEMATIC  THEOLOGY  IN   THE 
GRADUATE   DIVINITY   SCHOOL 


BY 

ANGUS  STEWART  WOODBURNE 


■I 


f  i 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO  PRESS 
CHICAGO,  ILLINOIS 

1920 


/>v 


Zbc  TUntvcrsttp  ot  Cbicago 


THE  RELATION  BETWEEN  RELIGION 

AND  SCIENCE:  A  BIOLOGICAL 

APPROACH 


A  DISSERTATION 

SUBMITTED  TO   THE   FACULTY 

OF   THE   GRADUATE   SCHOOL   OF   ARTS   AND  LITERATURE 

IN  CANDIDACY  FOR  THE  DEGREE   OF 

DOCTOR  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

DEPARTMENT  OF  SYSTEMATIC  THEOLOGY  IN   THE 
GRADUATE  DIVINITY   SCHOOL 


BY 

ANGUS  STEWART  WOODBURNE 

'A 


•  »    •  *   • 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO  PRESS 
CHICAGO,  ILLINOIS 

1920 


yvu 


Copyright  1920  By 
The  University  of  Chicago 


All  Rights  Reserved 


Published  January  1920 


rxcH/M«n?» 


Composed  and  Printed  By 

The  University  of  Chicago  Press 

Chicago.  lUinois.  U.S.A. 


f^O  i{ 


PREFACE 

The  attempt  is  made  in  this  thesis  to  examine  the  age-long 
problem  of  the  interrelationship  of  religion  and  science  from  a  new 
angle,  namely  that  of  psychology  considered  as  a  biological  science. 
There  is  a  general  recognition  today  that  the  elements  common  to 
the  religions  and  those  common  to  the  sciences  are  psychological. 
The  facts  of  religious  experience  and  the  facts  of  scientific  experi- 
ence are  so  multiform  that  the  only  place  to  discover  a  common 
basis  is  in  the  attitudes  of  consciousness  giving  rise  to  these  variant 
concrete  expressions.  Furthermore  there  is  a  general  recognition 
among  psychologists  that  the  genesis  of  all  the  attitudes,  including 
the  religious  and  the  scientific,  is  localizable  in  the  instinctive 
behaviors  of  the  psycho-physical  organism. 

It  seems  only  fair  that  psychologists  should  recognize  that 
those  best  equipped  to  define  instinctive  behavior  are  the  biolo- 
gists. On  the  basis  of  a  biologically  acceptable  defijiition,  a  sound 
theory  of  the  origin  of  religion  and  science  is  possible.  The  theory 
proposed  is  that  these  attitudes  have  their  roots  in  behavior  which, 
while  instinctive,  is  multiple.  In  proof  of  the  contention,  refer- 
ence is  made  to  many  of  the  rites  and  practices  of  primitive  peoples 
which  are  recorded  in  the  source  books  on  anthropology.  It  is 
the  hope  of  the  author  that  this  effort  may  contribute  in  some  small 
measure  to  the  solution  of  a  great  problem. 

A.  S.  WOODBURNE 
Camp  Dodge,  Iowa  /- 

January,  1920  / 


433145 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  Concerning  Method i 

II.  A  Historical  Survey  of  the  Influence  of  Psychological 

Theory  on  the  Problem lo 

III.  The  Differentia  of  Religion  and  Science  .       .       .31 

IV.  The  Search  for  a  Scientific  Definition  of  Instinct     .  44 

V.  The  Theory  of  Specific  Religious  and  Scientific  Instincts  56 

VI.  The  Effort  to  Identify  Religion  and  Science   with   Cer- 
tain Specific  Instincts 63 

VII.  The  Multiple  Instinctive  Origin  of  Religion  and  Science  69 

VIII.  Theological  Implications        . 91 

Bibliography 96 


vu 


CHAPTER  I 
CONCERNING  METHOD 

It  is  the  aim  of  this  chapter  to  set  forth  in  outline  the  develop- 
ment of  a  scientific  method.  The  deductive  method  of  Aristotle 
dominated  the  thinking  of  the  Middle  Ages  and  was  ecclesiastically 
sanctioned  in  Catholicism.  But  the  needs  created  by  scientific 
progress  made  the  evolution  of  a  better  method  inevitable.  The 
seventeenth  century  witnessed  the  rise  of  induction  which  in  its 
developed  form  is  the  method  of  modern  science.  But  induction, 
to  be  complete,  must  make  use  of  the  genetic  method,  involving 
history  and  psychology.  Thus  this  sketch  (i)  indicates  the 
cause  and  nature  of  the  long  conflict  between  science  and  theology, 
and  (2)  furnishes  a  vindication  for  the  study  of  the  relation  of 
religion  to  science  from  the  point  of  view  of  psychology. 

The  attainment  of  a  method  for  a  scientific  approach  to  our 
human  problems  has  a  history  which  takes  us  back  to  the  Greeks. 
The  beginning  of  logic  is  to  be  found  in  Aristotle.  It  was  his 
theory  that  reality  is  to  be  found  in  particulars,  and  that  these 
particulars  have  universals  and  attributes  attached  to  them.  He 
was  the  first  to  conceive  of  reason  {\6yos)  as  a  definite  subject  of 
investigation.  The  process  of  reasoning,  he  taught,  was  a  com- 
bination of  premises  {crvWoyLo-iJLos)  to  produce  a  new  conclusion. 
Logic  was  thus  for  him  a  science  of  deductive  inference.  He  can 
hardly  be  said  to  have  a  logic  of  induction.  His  universals  were 
obtained  by  a  process  of  analysis  and  abstraction  in  which  differ- 
ences were  eliminated  and  particulars  were  grouped  according  to 
their  homogeneity  into  classes.  Accordingly  science,  which  was 
selective,  picked  on  a  specific  object,  which  it  handled  with  the 
tools  forged  for  the  purpose.  Its  abstract  universals  were  obtained 
in  the  analytical  fashion,  and  were  then  made  the  major  premises 
in  a  deductive  process  which  led  to  a  definite  conclusion.  Any 
reasoning  which  could  not  be  put  thus  in  the  form  of  a  syllogism 
was  regarded  as  imperfect. 


2  THE  RELATION  BETWEEN  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE 

Following  upon  the  period  of  Greek  scholarship  came  a  long 
period  when  scientific  learning  made  no  progress.  The  achieve- 
ments of  the  Greeks  had  been  absorbed  in  the  utilitarian  spirit 
of  the  Roman  Empire.  Then  followed  that  period  of  political 
and  social  corrosion  known  to  history  as  the  "Dark  Ages,"  a 
period  noteworthy  for  its  lack  of  creative  thought.  It  is  to  the 
Arabians  that  we  owe  the  dawn  of  a  new  interest  in  both  science 
and  philosophy.  These  men,  though  Moslem,  had  come  under  the 
influence  of  Greek  thought,  and  were  the  means  for  a  revivification 
of  Aristotelianism  through  the  channel  of  a  Semitic  language.  In 
Persia  and  in  Spain,  then  under  Saracen  control,  from  the  ninth 
to  the  twelfth  centuries  these  men  championed  the  mediaeval 
renaissance  of  science  and  philosophy.  From  the  Arabians  the 
renewed  interest  in  Greek  thought  rapidly  spread.  The  fact  that 
the  King  of  Sicily,  Roger  II  (1093-1154),  and  the  emperor,  Fred- 
erick II  (11 94-1 2  50),  called  numbers  of  these  Arabian  scholars 
to  their  courts  gave  to  the  movement  a  new  impetus.  Translations 
of  Aristotle  were  made,  and  the  universities  at  Paris,  Bologne,  and 
Oxford  began  to  study  Aristotle  with  zest. 

The  spread  of  Greek  thought  meant  that  it  soon  found  its 
way  into  Christian  circles.  The  later  scholastics  were  acquainted 
with  and  largely  influenced  by  the  new  movement.  At  first  the 
effect  was  an  unsettling  of  the  orthodox  views  of  the  time,  and  a 
type  of  mystical  pantheism  arose.  This  resulted  in  the  University 
of  Paris,  with  papal  sanction,  placing  a  ban  on  Aristotle  (12 15), 
but  in  less  than  half  a  century  the  ban  was  removed,  and  the 
Aristotelian  system  became  the  church's  best  tool  chest.  Alexander 
of  Hales  (d.  1245),  Robert  Groseteste  (d.  1253),  and  John  Rochelle 
(d.  1 271)  were  among  the  first  ecclesiastics  to  make  use  of  Aristotle. 
Albertus  Magnus  (i  193-1280)  was  "the  first  scholastic  who 
reproduced  the  whole  philosophy  of  Aristotle  in  systematic  order 
with  constant  reference  to  the  Arabian  commentators,  and  who 
remodelled  it  to  meet  the  requirements  of  ecclesiastical  dogma.  "* 
But  it  is  to  Albert's  great  pupil,  Thomas  Aquinas  {ca.  1227-74), 
that  we  owe  a  thoroughly  digested  and  ecclesiastical  rendering  of 

'Encyclopaedia  Britannica  (nth  edition),  XXIV,  353,  article  "Scholasticism," 
by  A.  S.  Pringle-Pattison. 


CONCERNING  METHOD  3 

the  Aristotelian  system.  In  his  Summa  Theologica  Aquinas  has 
made  use  of  the  conceptuaHst  machinery  of  the  Greek  thinker. 
The  form  of  the  propositions  with  which  he  dealt  is  syllogistic. 
The  content  is  intended  to  cover  the  range  of  human  knowledge 
arranged  according  to  the  method  of  the  subsumptive  logic  and 
subordinated  to  the  church.  It  made  use  of  all  sources  of  ecclesi- 
astical authority,  Scripture,  conciliar  decisions,  patristic  comments 
and  tradition,  and  thus  built  up  a  work  which  soon  became  the 
theological  dicta  of  the  Catholic  church.  So  that  the  test  of 
CathoHc  orthodoxy  from  that  day  until  this  is  agreement  with 
Aquinas. 

The  effect  of  this  movement  upon  the  church  was  to  be  seen 
in  the  attitude  which  it  assumed  throughout  the  Middle  Ages. 
The  effort  was  made  to  maintain  an  ecclesiastical  standardization 
of  all  the  departments  of  human  hfe,  science,  and  ethics,  no  less 
than  religion  and  theology.  The  church  claimed  that  she  had 
received  her  knowledge  by  a  supernatural  revelation.  The  super- 
natural character  of  church  knowledge  thus  placed  it  in  a  class 
independent  of  and  superior  to  scientific  knowledge,  the  source 
of  which  is  fallible  human  reason.  In  case  of  a  disagreement 
between  ecclesiastical  and  scientific  findings  the  course  of  conduct 
was  logically  plain.  Remembering  the  source  of  church  knowledge 
and  that  quality  depends  on  origin,  the  inevitable  rejection  of 
scientific  knowledge  followed.  Thus  it  was  that  the  Catholic 
church  maintained  its  authority  ever  science,  and  the  bitter  conflict 
between  science  and  theology  ensued.  It  ought  to  be  evident 
that  the  conflict  was  virtually  between  two  types  of  science. 
Theology,  as  we  have  seen,  rested  upon  the  whole  framework  of 
the  Aristotelian  deductive  schema.  But  the  physical  sciences 
have  never  made  any  clear  progress  under  the  regime  of  deduction. 

The  heroic  struggle  of  science  for  emancipation  in  the  use  of  a 
method  which  would  insure  the  most  trustworthy  results  met  with 
dogged  and  prolonged  opposition.  A  beginning  was  made  by 
Roger  Bacon,  who  was  a  contemporary  of  the  great  Aquinas.  But 
for  two  hundred  years  after  Roger  Bacon  the  church  completely 
dominated  the  situation  and  no  appreciable  progress  was  made. 
In  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries  certain  epoch-making 


4  THE  RELATION  BETWEEN  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE 

events  transpired  which,  on  the  one  hand,  compelled  the  church  to 
take  a  less  dictatorial  attitude  toward  the  sciences,  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  made  the  evolution  of  a  new  method  inevitable. 

First  there  occurred  the  two  great  discoveries  which  gave  rise 
to  the  great  extension  of  navigation — the  discovery  of  America  by 
Columbus  in  1492  and  the  circumnavigation  of  the  globe  by 
Magellan,  15 19-21.  The  necessities  of  the  expansion  of  naviga- 
tion called  for  a  new  cosmology.  The  Ptolemaic  hypothesis  posited 
a  flat  and  stationary  earth  at  the  center  of  the  cosmos.  Magellan 
proved  that  the  earth  was  round  by  sailing  around  it.  Copernicus 
(1473-1543)  was  the  framer  of  the  heliocentric  cosmology  which 
recognized  the  rotundity  and  motion  of  the  earth. 

The  astronomical  theory  of  Copernicus  was  opposed  by  Catholic 
and  Protestant  aUke.  The  Protestant  Reformation  antedated 
the  birth  of  induction,  so  that  the  Reformers  were  as  bitter  as  the 
church  in  the  invectives  which  they  hurled  at  the  new  science, 
which  conflicted  with  the  scriptural  cosmology  to  which  the  church 
had  lent  its  imprimatur.  Bruno,  the  Italian  philospher  and 
scientist,  was  burned  as  a  martyr  to  the  new  science  in  1600.  But 
the  telescope  of  Galileo,  ten  years  later,  proved  the  truth  of  that 
for  which  Bruno  had  been  compelled  to  lay  down  his  life. 

The  importance  of  Galileo  was  twofold.  Not  only  did  he 
establish  beyond  a  peradventure  the  heliocentric  cosmology,  but 
he  discovered  that  the  motion  of  the  earth  was  self-induced  and 
self -sustained.  This  was  a  double  attack  on  church  doctrines. 
First,  the  church  anthropology  made  man  the  center  of  creation, 
but  even  the  earth  which  he  inhabited  was  now  seen  to  be  eccentric. 
The  dissolution  of  that  doctrine  was  completed  in  the  nineteenth 
century  with  the  advent  of  Darwinianism.  Secondly,  the  hypoth- 
esis of  self-motion  was  a  death-dealing  blow  to  the  doctrine  of 
absolutes  and  apriority.     Statics  gave  way  to  dynamics. 

The  work  of  Galileo  was  continued  by  Johann  Kepler  (1571- 
1630),  Issac  Newton  (1642-1727),  and  Laplace  (1749-1847). 
Newton  formulated  the  doctrine  of  gravitation  by  which  the 
motions  of  the  various  planets  are  attributed  to  an  inner  pervading 
force,  thus  encountering  opposition  from  the  theological  doctrine 
of  a  creating  Providence.     Laplace's  nebular  hypothesis  afforded 


CONCERNING  METHOD  5 

a  causal  explanation  of  the  origin  of  the  heavenly  bodies  which 
still  further  retired  the  theological  explanation. 

Every  step  of  advance  was  made  at  the  cost  of  a  struggle.  The 
older  method  was  intrenched  with  all  the  fortifications  of  an 
organized  and  supermundanely  authenticated  system.  But  for  all 
that,  events  proved  that  the  source  of  the  old  knowledge  was  no 
guaranty  of  its  truth.  So  the  work  of  these  astronomers  along 
with  the  accomplishments  of  men  in  the  other  sciences,  such  as 
Leonardo  da  Vinci  in  the  geological  realm,  made  insistent  the 
evolution  of  a  method  which  should  do  justice  to  things  as  they  are. 

It  remained  for  Francis  Bacon  to  make  the  first  formulation 
of  the  inductive  method.  Beginning  with  the  hypothesis  that 
the  knowledge  of  nature  depends  on  observation  and  experience, 
he  proposed  to  observe  and  collect  a  vast  number  of  facts,  and 
then  to  follow  the  inductive  method  of  getting  universals  from 
this  mass  of  particulars.  The  aim  was  to  acquire  a  command  over 
nature  by  knowledge.  He  was  therefore  opposed  to  the  syllo- 
gistic method  which  accepted  its  major  premises  from  science  on 
trust. 

Descartes  in  his  Discourse  on  Method  attempted  with  mathe- 
matical precision  to  attain  a  basis  for  knowledge  in  the  indubitable 
facts  of  experience.  He  carried  into  the  field  of  the  mental  pro- 
cesses the  method  of  natural  explanation  which  the  astronomers 
had  introduced  in  the  explanation  of  cosmic  processes,  in  con- 
tradistinction to  the  supernaturalism  of  the  Middle  Ages.  So 
that  Francis  Bacon  and  Descartes  both  insisted  on  the  banishing 
of  theology  from  science,  thus  freeing  science  to  work  out  a  new 
method  as  it  substituted  mechanical  for  final  causation  in  the 
explanation  of  phenomena. 

From  the  seventeenth  century  the  inductive  method  has 
gradually  become  dominant  in  science,  until  today  we  may  say 
that  science  is  coterminous  with  induction.  To  be  sure,  the 
inductive  method  in  our  day  has  become  something  more  scientific 
than  it  was  in  the  days  of  Francis  Bacon.  Baconian  induction 
was  too  atomistic  and  lacked  a  means  of  testing  its  conclusions. 
That  has  been  remedied  in  the  use  of  hypotheses  and  the  trial- 
and-error  plan  for  testing  them.     We  are  able  to  take  the  past  up 


6  THE  RELATION  BETWEEN  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE 

into  the  present  in  this  way,  and  through  the  difference  with  the 
past  we  realize  the  present.  The  scientist  finds  an  exception  to  a 
rule  and  sets  about  the  formulation  of  a  new  rule  that  will  include 
the  exception.  In  this  way  the  conclusions  of  science  are  attained 
experimentally  and  afiford  a  legitimate  means  for  the  explanation 
and  interpretation  of  human  institutions,  including  religion. 
Science  uses  the  research  method,  which  includes  the  recognition 
of  a  problem  and  the  finding  of  a  solution  thereto  by  the  employ- 
ment of  hypotheses  and  tests. 

With  the  evolution  of  a  scientific  method  it  was  inevitable  that 
sooner  or  later  it  should  be  employed  in  the  study  of  religion. 
So  long  as  religion  was  equated  with  revelation  a  science  of  religion 
or  a  historical  study  of  religion  was  impossible.  A  beginning  was 
made  when  David  Hume  in  1755  published  his  Natural  History  of 
Religion,  giving  it  a  historical  and  psychological  basis.  For  more 
than  a  hundred  years  after  that  progress  was  slow.  Here  and 
there  a  scholar  attempted  to  study  religion  more  scientifically. 
But  as  a  rule  the  method  was  the  examination  of  a  non-Christian 
religion  and  a  comparison  of  it  with  Christianity  with  a  view  to 
showing  the  spuriousness  of  the  former.  It  was  a  contrast  between 
a  human  invention  and  a  divine  revelation. 

It  was  not  until  the  nineteenth  century  that  the  historical 
method  really  came  to  its  own.  That  was  consequent  upon  the 
rise  of  induction.  A  thoroughgoing  observation  of  any  human 
institution  involves  an  investigation  into  the  matter  of  how  it  came 
to  be  in  the  historical  process,  of  the  social  substratum  in  which  it 
was  created,  and  of  the  order  of  sequence  in  its  development.  The 
first  chair  in  the  History  of  Religions  to  be  established  in  a  university 
was  in  the  College  de  la  France  in  1884.  Since  then  progress  has 
been  so  rapid  that  the  historical  method  has  become  synonymous 
with  scholarship  in  the  study  of  religion. 

The  historical  method  furnishes  a  survey  of  the  way  or  ways 
in  which  any  human  product  has  functioned  and  has  changed  to 
meet  the  exigencies  of  social  situations.  It  also  furnishes  data  for 
the  work  of  classification  and  appraisal.  By  the  use  of  historical 
analyses  one  is  compelled  to  understand  the  social  and  functional 
worth  of  all  human  creations.     The  older  method  tried  to  give  an 


CONCERNING  METHOD  7 

account  of  the  truth  of  an  idea  by  a  syllogistic  process;  the  new 
method  leads  to  a  study  of  the  worth  of  an  idea  in  the  historical 
process.  That  means  an  appreciation  of  the  relativity  of  all 
thought-products  and  the  necessity  of  working  with  a  true  organon. 
And  the  organon  to  which  the  historical  study  of  either  religion  or 
science  leads  is  not  conformity  to  an  authoritative  standard,  but 
competency  to  do  something  for  man  which  he  needs  to  have  done 
in  his  struggle  for  existence. 

Notwithstanding  the  Catholic  theory  of  an  unalterable  system 
of  religious  truth,  the  actual  history  of  beliefs  shows  constant 
experimentation  and  mutation,  an  unconscious  recognition  of  the 
scientific  method.  Contingency  has  played  comparatively  little 
part  in  the  development  of  scientific  thought  as  it  has  in  religious 
thought.  Actual  problems  demanding  solution,  concrete  needs 
demanding  satisfaction,  social  tensions  demanding  adjustment — 
these  have  been  the  historical  progenitors  of  scientific  laws  and 
discoveries  as  well  as  of  religious  doctrines. 

The  historical  method  is  the  effort  to  be  honest.  It  is  the 
recognition  that  every  development  in  history  is  determined  by 
sociological  and  psychological  influences.  The  deductive  method 
is  essentially  normative.  It  works  well  so  long  as  the  major 
premise  is  scientifically  credible.  But  when  the  universal  scorns 
to  account  for  the  exceptions  the  method  breaks  down.  The 
historian  is  just  as  much  interested  in  exceptions  as  in  rules.  He 
seeks  to  know  the  facts  and  to  adjust  his  theory  to  the  facts  rather 
than  the  facts  to  his  theory.  So  that  the  historical  method  is  the 
only  method  for  objectivity.  It  recognizes  that  the  life-processes 
cannot  be  confined  within  the  bounds  of  the  syllogism.  Hence  it 
takes  cognizance  of  things  as  they  occur,  regardless  of  their  place 
in  logical  processes.  Scholasticism  worked  on  the  assumption 
that  the  criterion  for  rehgion  must  be  logical,  which  in  the  last 
analysis  is  an  attempt  to  locate  the  seat  of  religion  in  the  intellect. 
But  the  historical  and  psychological  study  of  religion  shows  that 
its  locus  is  rather  in  deep-seated,  felt  needs  of  Hfe  which  find  their 
roots  in  the  instincts. 

The  historical  study  involves  the  application  of  the  genetic 
method.     An  interest  in  the  functional  value  of  an  institution  leads 


8  THE  RELATION  BETWEEN  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE 

to  the  functional  problem  of  how  it  came  to  be  as  the  product  of  an 
evolutionary  process.  So  that  the  natural  complement  of  a  histori- 
cal study  leads  into  the  field  of  social  psychology.  "The  past  is 
involved  in  the  present  in  the  case  of  human  history  as  much  as  in 
that  of  geological  evolution.'"  Social  psychology  is  one  of  the 
best  tools  that  modern  thought  has  invented  for  the  interpretation 
of  human  institutions.  It  helps  to  an  understanding  of  the  place 
of  religion  in  the  social  current  and  of  the  functional  relationship 
between  the  facts  of  religion  and  the  larger  social  whole  in  which 
rehgion  operates.  Historical  study  proves  that  there  is  no  period 
which  has  a  monopoly  of  spiritual  values  sui  generis.  Social 
psychology  shows  that  it  is  as  fruitless  to  seek  to  understand  any 
religious  reaction  by  itself  as  to  visit  a  fossil  museum  without  an 
understanding  of  geology.  History  gives  us  the  records;  social 
psychology  helps  us  to  relate  religion  to  the  stream  of  thought  and 
life. 

So  then  the  deeper  problems  of  life  urge  us  on  from  a  historical 
to  a  psychological  study.  History  may  be  able  to  supply  us  with 
the  order  of  sequence  of  religious  happenings,  but  even  here  there 
are  lacunae  to  fill  in  which  the  historian  is  dependent  on  the  psychol- 
ogist. In  addition  there  are  the  further  problems  of  (i)  the 
determinants  of  the  sequence  of  religious  occurrences,  and  (2)  the 
cause  of  the  genesis  of  the  religious  phenomena  themselves,  and 
these  are  functional  problems  which  it  is  not  the  province  of  history 
to  solve.  History  is  concerned  with  the  external  forms  and  prod- 
ucts of  rehgion  and  science.  The  study  of  the  mental  processes, 
individual  and  social,  which  gave  birth  to  those  externals  is  a 
psychological  study.  Consequently  the  last  quarter  of  a  century 
has  witnessed  the  apphcation  of  a  psychological  method  to  a  study 
of  these  human  institutions,  particularly  of  religion. 

The  immense  advance  in  the  study  of  psychological  science 
itself  is  fortunately  coincident  with  its  being  used  as  a  method  for 
studying  religion  and  other  disciplines.  Of  especial  import  for  the 
religious  problem  is  social  psychology,  through  which  we  are  learning 
that  the  individual  '^omes  to  mental  and  moral  consciousness  only 

'  F.  A.  Tennant,  "Historical  Fact  in  Relation  to  the  Philosophy  of  Religion," 
in  Hibbert  Journal,  VIII,  177. 


CONCERNING  METHOD  9 

in  a  social  world.  The  rise  of  religion  is  in  the  corporate  life  of  the 
group.  And,  as  Durkheim  has  shown/  the  religion  of  a  folk  is  a 
socializing  of  the  supermundane  world  on  the  analogy  of  its  own 
social  structure. 

The  data  for  the  historian  and  the  psychologist  alike  are  what 
people  do.  But  behavior  is  socially  determined  both  as  to  origin 
and  to  direction.  So  that  history  and  psychology  both  lead  to  a 
social  investigation.  It  is  in  the  life-experiences  of  folks,  considered 
historically  and  spiritually,  externally  and  internally,  that  we  seek 
to  locate  the  genesis  and  value  of  both  religion  and  science.  Reli- 
gion and  science  are  both  of  them  social  facts  inasmuch  as  they 
originated  in  the  folk  experiences  to  meet  human  needs. 

It  is  only  by  the  use  of  psychology  that  we  can  hope  to  make  any 
adequate  analysis  of  the  phenomena  of  religion  and  science  as 
human  institutions.  Historical  observation  furnishes  us  merely 
with  the  external  phenomena.  Cults  and  ceremonials,  rites  and 
rituals  in  religion,  and  laws,  theories,  and  laboratory  materials  in 
science  are  not  the  stuff  which  afford  us  the  differentia  and  the 
common  elements  for  definitive  purposes.  The  hopelessness  of 
getting  definitions  on  the  basis  of  mere  externals  has  been  sub- 
stantiated by  their  very  numbers.  The  basis  is  a  psychological 
one,^  and  it  is  to  be  found  in  the  study  of  the  history  of  human 
endeavors  in  their  actual  situations.  The  unifying  principle  which 
underlies  the  multiplicity  of  religious  phenomena,  the  synthesis  by 
which  we  abstract  meaning  from  the  facts  of  religious  development, 
must  be  psychological.  In  precisely  the  same  way  the  unity 
behind  the  multiplicity  of  scientific  phenomena  is  psychological. 
So  that  we  are  driven  into  the  use  of  a  historico-psychological 
method  for  an  appreciation  at  once  of  the  differentia  and  the 
genesis  of  religion  and  of  science. 

'  Les  Formes  Elemenlaires  de  la  Vie  Religieuse,  pp.  56,  57. 

'  Cf .  Galloway,  The  Philosophy  of  Religion,  section  B  of  the  Introduction,  where 
the  author  discusses  the  problem  of  method.  He  points  out  very  lucidly  that  an 
understanding  of  religion  is  only  possible  through  psychology,  because  its  expressions 
are  those  of  a  conscious  mind  which  it  is  the  province  of  psychology  to  interrogate. 
If,  as  Galloway  points  out,  "the  unifying  principle  which  underlies  the  religious 
phenomena  is  the  psychical  nature  of  man"  (p.  31),  so  too  we  may  contend  that  the 
unifying  principle  beneath  the  multiform  activities  and  creations  of  science  has  its 
seat  in  man's  psychical  nature.    To  that  problem  chapter  ii  is  addressed. 


CHAPTER  II 

A  HISTORICAL  SURVEY  OF  THE  INFLUENCE  OF   PSYCHO- 
LOGICAL THEORY  ON  THE  PROBLEM 

In  an  examination  of  the  problem  of  the  relation  between 
science  and  religion,  it  would  be  difficult  to  exaggerate  the  impor- 
tance of  the  psychological  bearing  of  the  problem.  A  survey  of  the 
history  of  the  relationships  which  have  existed  between  these  two 
disciplines  reveals  the  fact  that  the  prevalent  psychological  theory 
and  method  which  were  dominant  in  each  period  were  two  of  the 
most  important  factors  in  determining  the  viewpoint  of  the  scholars 
of  that  period  toward  this  specific  problem.  Before  passing  to  a 
consideration  of  the  approach  to  the  problem  which  is  obtained 
through  contemporary  psychology  it  is  the  purpose  of  this  chapter 
to  indicate  the  bearing  of  the  theories  of  the  past  upon  our  problem. 


An  investigation  into  the  behavior  of  primitive  peoples  dis- 
closes the  fact  that  there  was  no  such  thing  as  a  science,  mental  or 
physical.  There  was  no  such  thing  as  religion  in  the  differentiated 
sense  that  we  use  the  word  today.  There  was  no  such  thing  as 
magic,  as  sophisticated  people  use  the  term.  What  we  see  is  a 
vast  complex,  a  heterogeneous  mass  of  all  the  stuff  out  of  which  life 
is  made.  In  other  words,  it  is  an  undifferentiated  complex  of 
materials.  One  of  the  difficulties  against  which  we  need  to  guard 
is  the  danger  of  reading  back  into  the  activities  of  primitive  man 
the  differentiations  which  mark  an  age  of  culture. 

The  behavior  of  primitive  man  approximates  to  that  of  his 
animal  ancestors  in  that  it  is  more  instinctive  than  reflective. 
His  nervous  system  is  as  yet  not  developed  to  the  degree  that  he 
has  attained  control  over  his  motor  activity,  but  that  motor 
activity  is  simple  and  is  spontaneously  discharged  in  response  to 
the  stimuli  which  irritate  his  sensory  organs.  The  attainment  of 
control  over  those  motor  reactions  is  a  part  of  the  process  through 

JO 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  PSYCHOLOGICAL  THEORY  ii 

which  there  emerges  intelligence  and  the  power  of  reflection. 
The  differentiation  between  the  neurosis  and  the  psychosis  was 
evolved  in  this  primitive  stage  of  the  life-process. 

In  this  early  period  of  the  history  of  the  race  man  did  not  make 
the  difference  which  he  came  to  make  later  between  himself  and 
the  lower  animals.  The  dominant  needs  of  life  which  he  ex- 
perienced, nutrition  and  reproduction,  were  characteristic  of  the 
animals  of  the  other  genera.  They  were  possessed  of  qualities, 
such  as  celerity  in  the  deer,  strength  in  the  tiger,  or  cleverness  in 
the  fox,  which  he  deemed  to  be  decided  advantages  in  the  struggles 
of  life.  In  that  primitive  stage  when  his  brothers  were  often  a 
prey  to  other  animals,  there  was  no  overmastering  evidence  that 
he  was  getting  the  best  of  it.  He  belonged  to  a  subaltern  genus 
(man)  in  the  summum  genus  (animal).  It  was,  in  brief,  a  pre- 
dualistic  age. 

In  this  primitive  period  there  were  certain  phenomena,  such  as 
dreams,  sleep,  death,  the  visibility  of  the  breath  on  a  cold  day, 
which  played  an  important  role  in  the  evolution  of  man's  reflective 
processes.  One  of  the  first  evidences  which  we  have  of  a  dualism 
resultant  therefrom  was  the  difference  which  he  made  between  the 
seen  and  the  unseen.  The  phenomena  mentioned  helped  him  to 
the  conclusion  that  there  must  be  an  unseen  world  which  he 
imaginatively  peopled  with  life  such  as  existed  in  the  seen  world, 
with  the  exception  that  the  life  there  was  disembodied,  which 
gave  to  it  an  undue  advantage  over  him.  These  animistic  con- 
ceptions were  at  first  very  vague,  as  were  indeed  all  of  his  primitive 
reflections.  They  were  the  reflections  which  belonged  to  a  pre- 
scientific  and  therefore  pre-psychological  age.  In  the  seeking  for 
the  satisfactions  for  his  primitive  wants,  about  all  the  distinction 
which  he  made  was  a  distinction  between  things  or  powers  which 
helped  and  things  or  powers  which  hindered  him  in  the  procuring 
of  those  satisfactions.  The  unforeseen  phenomena  of  life  would 
call  forth  instinctive  reactions.  The  stubbing  of  his  toe  on  a 
protruding  stone  or  root  would  cause  him  to  react  to  the  stone  as 
though  it  were  animated,  and  he  would  never  quite  recover  from 
that  attitude  growing  out  of  his  first  reaction.  In  that  way  the 
objective  world  would  very  gradually  become  for  him  animated 


12        THE  RELATION  BETWEEN  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE 

with  helpful  and  harmful  spirits.  His  own  desire  to  help  his 
friends  or  to  hinder  his  enemies  in  the  struggle  to  procure  the 
satisfaction  of  their  wants  contributed  to  the  association  of  his 
helps  and  hindrances  which  were  to  him  inscrutable  with  some 
other  animus.  Here  we  have  another  factor  which  played  its  part 
in  the  development  of  animism.  It  would  be  assuming  too  great 
sophistication,  however,  to  say  that  here  we  have  primitive  man's 
scientific  category  of  causality.  It  was  simply  his  distinctions 
between  helps  and  hindrances  toward  the  satisfaction  of  pressing 
needs,  the  helps  being  gradually  associated  with  a  friendly  attimus 
and  the  hindrances  with  a  hostile  animus.  Neither  can  we  say 
that  this  behef  in  animi  was  due  to  the  fact  that  man  was  "incurably 
religious,"  to  use  the  phrase  of  Sabatier,^  but  it  was  rather  the 
beginnings  of  the  reflective  process  trying  to  solve  the  problems  of 
life  with  its  demands  for  means  to  meet  its  recurring  needs. 

The  age  of  primitivity,  then,  is  not  to  be  studied  with  the 
object  of  procuring  data  to  substantiate  a  preconceived  theory 
which  we  desire  to  have  confirmed.  If  we  approach  the  facts  as 
they  are  presented  in  experience  in  the  history  of  the  race,  we  do 
not  find  primitive  man  making  those  differentiations  which  we 
sometimes  assume  are  as  old  as  the  race,  the  distinctions  between 
the  physical  and  the  psychical,  between  the  human  and  the  lower 
animal,  between  religion  and  science  and  art.  We  are  able,  indeed, 
to  find  a  great  deal  of  the  material  out  of  which  these  differentiations 
developed,  but  the  process  of  making  those  distinctions  belongs  to  a 
subsequent  age,  and  the  fact  that  man  did  learn  to  apprehend  the 
differences  noted  proves  that  he  has  transcended  the  age  of  primi- 
tivity. ^ 

II 

In  Greek  thought  we  meet  with  the  development  of  a  thorough- 
going dualism.  And  the  great  names  with  which  this  development 
is  associated  are,  of  course,  Plato  and  Aristotle.  Plato  arrived 
at  his  dualistic  hypothesis  through  a  consideration  of  the  cognitive 
problem.  He  set  out  with  the  conviction  that  knowledge  is 
attainable  only  through  deduction,  and  set  for  himself  the  problem 

'  Outlines  of  a  Philosophy  of  Religion,  p.  3. 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  PSYCHOLOGICAL  THEORY  13 

of  discovering  why  knowledge  comes  through  conception.  He 
concluded  that  the  value-judgments  of  truth,  beauty,  and  goodness 
do  not  arise  from  experience.  So  he  was  forced  to  posit  a  super- 
sensible world  as  the  source  of  those  value-judgments.  In  that  way 
he  had  the  supersensible  world  as  the  intelligible  world,  the  real 
world,  the  world  of  ideas.  Over  against  it  was  the  world  of  ex- 
perience, the  sensible  world,  or  the  phenomenal  world.  The  latter 
he  conceived  to  be  a  copy  of  the  former;  the  latter  was  the  par- 
ticular and  the  former  the  universal.  Plato  gave  metaphysical 
value  to  the  world  of  ideas  and  had  an  aversion  to  the  natural 
order.  His  process  was  the  very  opposite  of  ours.  He  knew  the 
supersensible  world  through  knowledge  (eTrio-ri^jUt)  and  the  sensible 
world  through  faith  (xiaTrts),  thus  reversing  our  order  of  faith  and 
certainty.  Plato  was  certain  of  God,  and  he  accepted  the  phenome- 
nal world  by  faith.  We  are  sure  of  the  world,  and  we  know  God 
by  faith.  For  him  the  Idea  was  being;  matter  was  non-being 
{to  bv  and  jui)  6v).  In  this  way  Plato  arrived  at  dualism  as  an 
epistemological  device. 

Aristotle  attempted  to  overcome  the  difficulty  inherent  in  the 
dualism  of  Plato.  He  accepted  the  point  of  view  of  his  predecessor 
that  the  beginning  must  be  made  from  conceptual  knowledge. 
The  knowledge  of  real  being,  he  agreed,  is  the  knowledge  of  univer- 
sal. But  he  saw  that  Plato's  theory  of  Ideas  was  inadequate  to 
explain  the  world  of  experience.  So  he  tried  to  identify  the  two 
worlds  of  Platonic  thought  by  saying  that  real  being  is  in  the  par- 
ticular, in  which  the  universal  is  also  present.  To  discover  the 
relationship  of  the  universal  to  the  particular  he  founded  the 
science  of  logic.  Aristotle  asked  the  question,  What  are  the  gener- 
ative causes  of  real  being?  His  answer  was  that  there  are  four 
causes,  viz.,  material  causes  (uX?;),  formal  causes  (etSos),  efficient 
causes  or  moving  causes  {apxv),  and  final  causes  (reXos).  As  the 
reflection  went  on  there  came  to  be  a  practical  identification  of 
the  formal,  efficient,  and  final  causes  in  one  constituent  general 
principle.  This  meant  a  reduction  of  generative  causes  to  two, 
Idea  or  form  (elSos)  and  matter  {v\r}) .  The  former  is  the  essential 
or  cause  proper,  while  the  latter  is  the  secondary  cause.  Aristotle 
formed  a  conceptual  pyramid  with  his  one  eternal,  actual  Being, 


14        THE  RELATION  BETWEEN  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE 

the  uncaused  Cause,  unmoved  Mover,  pure  Form  without  matter, 
at  the  apex  of  the  pyramid. 

So  we  see  as  a  development  of  Greek  thought  a  dualism  whereby 
the  material  world  was  made  secondary  to  the  ideational  world. 
Mind  is  in  control.  Mind  was  the  form  of  organized  matter, 
which  Baldwin  takes  to  be  a  "restatement  of  the  hylozoism  and 
animism  of  the  Ionic  thinkers."^ 

When  Aristotle  comes  to  discuss  the  individual  he  is  controlled 
by  this  same  dualistic  viewpoint.  He  refers  to  the  relationship 
between  the  body  and  the  soul  as  that  which  exists  between  matter 
and  form,  capacity  or  potentiahty,  and  function  or  actuality 
(dwanis  and  euTekexeta).  The  soul  dominates  the  body  which 
exists  only  for  the  sake  of  the  soul.  At  the  same  time  he  makes  a 
differentiation  in  the  soul  itself,  there  being  a  part  which,  like  the 
body,  is  mortal,  i.e.,  sensation,  imagination,  memory,  and  will, 
but  also  a  part  which  is  immortal,  viz.,  the  active  intellect  {vovs 
TTOLTiTLKos).  lu  this  actlvc  intellect  he  posits  actual  existence  and 
describes  it  as  immaterial,  imperishable,  impassive,  and  eternal. 
Yet  this  active  intellect  is  something  which  is  external  to  man  and 
is  not  an  organic  part  of  him.  It  comes  to  him  from  without. 
It  appears  from  his  descriptions  to  be  in  no  wise  different  from  the 
absolute  intellect.  In  this  way  he  seems  to  make  the  immortal 
part  of  the  human  intellect,  active  intellect,  a  gift  of  the  Absolute, 
if  he  does  not  identify  it  virtually  with  the  Absolute.  Absolute's 
love  of  scientific  knowledge  might  be  called  a  passion,  and,  as  Weber 
says,  his  "theology  is  at  bottom  an  apotheosis  of  vovs."^ 

Ill 

The  theoretical  dualism  of  the  Greek  thinkers  furnished  a  mode 
of  thought  for  the  Christian  thinkers  of  the  New  Testament,  patristic, 
and  scholastic  periods. 

In  Thomas  Aquinas  we  reach  a  man  who  had  all  the  inheritance 
of  the  biblical  and  patristic  writings  upon  which  he  meditated  with 
a  mind  trained  in  the  subtleties  of  Greek  thought.  His  great 
teacher,  Albcrtus  Magnus,  had  been  a  pupil  of  Avicenna,  the 
Arabian  philosopher  who  had  been  foremost  in  the  revivification 

^History  of  Psychology,  II,  184-97.  ^  Weber,  History  of  Philosophy,  p.  134. 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  PSYCHOLOGICAL  THEORY  15 

of  Aristotle.  In  the  time  of  Albertus  there  was  already  emerging 
the  perplexity  over  the  opposing  truths  of  revelation  and  of  natural 
science.  He  tried  to  effect  a  modus  vivendi  by  asserting  that 
"revelation  is  above  but  not  contrary  to  reason."  Yet  he  con- 
cluded that  the  ideas  of  a  creation  in  time,  of  the  miraculous,  and 
of  such  elements  in  doctrine  as  those  which  have  to  do  with  the 
soul,  sin,  grace,  etc.,  are  incapable  of  harmonization  with  reason. 
They  must  be  accepted  as  given  by  a  higher  authority.  So  he  used 
a  method  which  made  a  reconciliation  of  science  (reason)  and 
religion  (revelation)  impossible.  His  attempt  to  apply  the  Aristo- 
teHan  logic  consistently  meant  that  he  made  a  breach  between 
Jewish  supernaturalism  and  Greek  rationalism  which  was  irrepa- 
rable. "By  the  false  antithesis  thus  raised  between  reason  and 
revelation,  he  prepared  the  way  for  the  long  conflict  between 
theology  and  science,  of  reason  and  dogma,  of  naturalism  and 
supernaturalism,  of  individual  judgment  and  collective  authority.  "^ 
Aquinas  was  a  greater  pupil  of  a  great  teacher.  As  we  have 
seen,  like  Albertus,  he  made  diligent  use  of  the  tools  which  had 
been  forged  in  the  workshop  of  Aristotle.  Aristotle  had  worked  out 
a  scheme  whereby  you  proceed  from  class-concept  to  larger  class- 
concept  up  the  line  until  you  reach  ultimate  class-concept.  The 
only  way  to  understand  the  particular  was  by  realizing  that  the 
universal  was  contained  in  it.  This  gave  to  Aquinas  the  mold 
into  which  to  run  the  stream  of  his  theological  thought.  It  was 
his  purpose  to  trace  the  passing  of  revelatory  knowledge  from  the 
higher  to  the  lower  in  ecclesiastical  authority.  The  system  of 
Aquinas  was  essentially  a  hierarchy.  He  posited  a  hierarchy  of 
bodies  in  nature,  the  consummation  of  which  is  the  natural  life 
of  man  which  on  its  part  became  the  starting-point  for  a  higher 
spiritual  life  which  is  developed  under  church  supervision.  He  had 
two  realms,  the  realm  of  grace  and  the  realm  of  nature.  The 
intellect  is  governed  by  the  reason  which  it  cannot  evade.  The 
will  tends  to  be  governed  by  the  principle  of  the  good  in  which 
its  freedom  is  established.  But  evil  comes  when  the  efforts  of  the 
will  are  paralyzed  by  sensuality.  So  we  see  the  beginning  of  the 
division  of  the  psychic  life  into  intellect,  senses,  and  will.    Wherever 

'  Beckwith  in  Neiv  Schaf-Herzog  E.R.K.,  I,  no,  article  "Albertus  Magnus." 


i6        THE  RELATION  BETWEEN  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE 

we  have  that  division  made  in  a  mechanical  way,  some  power 
of  control  is  necessary  to  prevent  inner  chaos.  Here  Aquinas 
resorted  to  the  technique  of  Aristotle  in  an  ecclesiasticized  form. 
The  church  must  be  in  control.  Reason  must  be  under  the  domina- 
tion of  revelation,  as  Albertus  had  said.  Science  must  be  dominated 
by  theology  which,  of  course,  was  that  theology  which  the  church 
sanctioned  as  orthodox.  Thus  we  see  the  beginnings  of  the  asser- 
tion of  religious  authority  over  psychology,  science,  and  all  the 
other  disciplines,  a  characteristic  tendency  of  the  whole  mediaeval 
period.     "During  the  greater  part  of  the  Middle  Ages  to  be  learned 

in  science  meant  to  be  learned  in  the  sacred  text The 

scientific  textbooks  were  based  upon  the  Bible,  at  least  in  con- 
siderable part.  "^  And  the  spirit  of  the  Middle  Ages  was  made 
vocal  in  such  books  as  Ymago  Mundi,  written  by  Cardinal  D'Ailly 
in  1410 — a  geographical  work  in  which  the  author  "gives  us  one 
of  the  most  striking  examples  in  history  of  a  great  man  in  theological 
fetters.  "^  Another  book  of  the  same  type  is  Vincent's  of  Beauvais, 
Mirror  of  Nature,  in  1 244,  It  was  a  book  of  amazing  erudition  in 
which  the  author  had  gathered  materials  from  all  sorts  of  sources, 
and  then  proceeded  to  show  that  the  church  is  dominant  over  all, 
whether  it  be  in  matters  of  astronomy,  physics,  botany,  geology, 
anatomy,  psychology,  physiology,  zoology,  geography,  law,  art, 
mathematics,  economics,  or  rehgion.  Still  another  example  is  to 
be  found  in  the  work  of  Samuel  Bochart  in  171 2  on  The  Animals  of 
the  Holy  Scripture,  in  which  all  the  investigations  of  the  naturalists 
are  used  to  corroborate  his  theological  interest.  Every  book  which 
attempts  to  use  the  Bible  as  a  source  book  for  the  deduction  of 
science  is,  whatever  be  the  date  of  its  publication,  a  work  of 
mediae  valism. 

IV 

The  advent  of  Descartes  (b.  1596)  marks  for  us  the  dawn  of 
the  modern  period,  the  beginnings  of  the  release  from  mediaevalism. 
Here  the  distinction  between  the  subject-self,  or  the  self  as  the 
thinking  and  judging  principle,  and  the  object-self,  or  the  self  as 

'  A.  C.  McGiffert,  TIte  Rise  of  Modern  Religious  Ideas,  p.  26. 
»  A.  D.  WTiite,  History  of  the  Warfare  of  Science  with  Theology,  I,  107.     Cf.  ako 
PP-  32-36  for  reference  to  the  Physiologus  and  Bestiaries. 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  PSYCHOLOGICAL  THEORY  17 

the  object  of  thought,  whether  representing  mind  or  ideas,  iirst 
emerges.  In  short,  Descartes  marks  a  transition,  viz.,  a  shift 
in  the  point  of  interest  from  the  divine  to  the  human,  from  the 
supernatural  to  the  natural.  He  was  led  to  this  point  of  view 
from  the  fact  that  he  was  primarily  a  scientist  and  a  mathematician, 
and  secondarily  a  philosopher.  His  interests  in  the  problems  of 
philosophy  and  psychology  grew  out  of  his  speculations  with  his 
scientific  data.  He  made  a  critical  examination  of  the  process  of 
human  thinking,  giving  it  a  natural  basis  as  over  against  the 
supernatural  basis  accorded  to  it  in  the  Middle  Ages.  The  merit 
of  his  critical  work  is  that  he  gives  the  beginnings  of  the  freedom 
of  our  modern  world.  The  unfortunate  thing  is  that  he  reduced 
man  to  a  logical  entity,  and  made  religion  and  science  both  to 
consist  in  ideas.  However,  he  was  moving  in  the  direction  of 
freedom,  so  that  for  him  science  was  no  longer  in  the  control  of 
theology.  Both  religion  and  science  were  left  free  within  the 
distinctive  sphere  to  which  each  belonged,  religion  to  the  sphere 
of  the  supernatural  destiny  of  the  soul,  and  science  in  the  sphere 
of  nature.  "Between  science  and  faith,  thus  conceived,  a  bargain 
was  struck.  Hands  off;  each  to  his  own  was  the  compact;  the 
natural  world  to  intelligence,  the  moral,  the  spiritual  world  to 
belief."^ 

We  have  seen  that  the  psychological  thought  of  Descartes  was 
rationalistic.  Leibnitz  and  Wolff  were  psychologists  of  the  same 
type.  Kant  criticized  this  rationalistic  system  on  the  ground 
that  there  were  unwarranted  metaphysical  assumptions  involved, 
as,  e.g.,  when  Descartes  said,  "I  think,  therefore  I  am,"  he  men- 
tally added,  "a  substance. "  The  conclusion  from  a  logical  subject 
to  a  metaphysical  one  is  unwarranted.  So  Kant  criticized  that 
very  reasoning  process  which  Descartes  and  the  other  rationalists 
had  taken  as  a  point  of  departure. 

The  modern  period  brings  us  to  that  very  interesting  develop- 
ment in  psychological  theory  known  as  faculty  psychology.  To 
be  sure,  there  are  traces  of  it  before  the  modern  period.  As  we 
have  seen,  even  the  Greeks,  Plato  and  Aristotle,  had  divided  the 
soul  into  "parts."     And  Thomas  Aquinas  talked  of  the  ''lumen 

'  John  Dewey,  The  Influence  of  Darwinism  on  Philosophy,  pp.  180  ff. 


i8        THE  RELATION  BETWEEN  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE 

supernaturale  to  receive  the  unchangeable  concept  or  essence  of 
an  object,  and  of  a  lumen  naturale  to  conceive  the  nature  of  a 
species  by  sense  presentations,  regardless  of  individual  character- 
istics. "'  The  faculty  concept  had  been  used  by  Leibnitz,  but  he 
had  along  with  it  a  conception  of  a  pre-established  harmony,  and 
his  approach  toward  the  problem  of  the  relation  between  religion 
and  science  was  an  effort  to  overcome  the  dualism  of  that  of 
Aquinas  and  the  other  Schoolmen.  Wolff  was  a  follower  of  Leibnitz, 
and  he  posited  the  faculty  theory,  saying  that  the  faculty  of 
knowledge  comprises  a  well-ordered  combination  of  facts  and 
theories.  Wolff  stated  the  law  of  association,  which  was  that 
"every  idea  tends  to  recall  to  the  mind  the  total  idea  of  which  it 
is  a  part.  "^  The  theory  of  Wolff  was  that  the  activity  of  the  soul 
is  distinguishable  in  various  directions  which  may  be  called  "facul- 
ties,"  and  of  which  he  makes  the  logical  faculty  the  primal.  He 
had  also  the  active  faculty  or  will,  and  the  imaginative  faculty 
which  produces  representations  connected  by  the  law  of  associa- 
tion, to  which  reference  has  just  been  made. 

The  faculty  concept  was  sharpened  up  still  more  in  Kant 
(17  24-1804),  who  made  distinctions  between  the  sensibility  or 
faculty  of  perception,  understanding  or  the  faculty  of  rules,  and 
reason  or  faculty  of  principles.  "Sense  gives  order  to  objects  in 
space  and  time,  inteUigence  relates  them  in  synthetic  categories, 
and  reason  imposes  the  regulative  ideals  of  all  knowledge.  "^ 

The  most  consistent  and  logical  of  the  psychologists  of  this 
type  was  Lotze.  Baldwin  sums  up  the  matter  in  connection  with 
him  as  follows: 

Put  on  the  defensive  in  the  matter  of  determining  the  fundamental  func- 
tions or  faculties,  Lotze  accepted  the  consequences  of  his  view.  Herbart  and 
Brentano  had  argued  that  if  once  we  admit  different  facidties,  there  is  no 
stopping  anywhere;  every  distinguishable  mode  of  mental  process  may  be 
described  as  a  separate  faculty;  color-perception  and  piano-playing  no  less 
than  feehng  and  will.  Lotze  did  not  deny  this,  but  claimed  that  certain 
generaUzations  were  possible  which  permitted  the  valid  demarcation  of  the 
great  functions  recognized  in  the  Kantian  threefold  division.'' 

'  Max  Dessoir,  Outlines  of  the  History  of  Psychology,  p.  65. 

^  Ibid.,  p.  136.  J  James  Mark  Baldwin,  History  of  Psychology,  II,  34. 

■»  Ibid.,  p.  86.    Lotze's  date  was  181 7-81. 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  PSYCHOLOGICAL  THEORY  19 

There  are  two  reactions,  in  general,  which  have  come  about  in 
relation  to  our  problem  as  a  consequence  of  the  domination  of 
faculty  psychology.  In  the  first  place,  wherever  we  have  the 
mental  processes  divided  in  a  mechanical  fashion  into  faculties, 
it  means  that  some  device  must  be  sought  in  order  to  secure  a 
unity  of  the  psychical  life.  We  have  seen  that  in  the  mediaeval 
scholars  this  unity  was  secured  by  the  positing  of  an  external 
control  in  the  Catholic  church.  We  have  seen  also  that  with 
Descartes  we  pass  out  from  this  external  control  and  seek  for  a 
human  way  of  dealing  with  our  data.  The  next  point  of  interest 
for  us  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  first  one  and  then  another  of 
these  faculties  of  the  mind  or  soul  is  made  the  regnant  influence. 
For  example,  in  Descartes  ideas  are  uppermost,  and  religion  and 
science  are  given  their  place  in  accordance  with  the  domination 
of  the  faculty  of  judgment.  And  the  God  of  Descartes  was  born 
in  the  matrix  of  his  need,  to  be  sure,  but  that  need  was  not  the 
usual  religious  need,  but  the  need  for  a  bridge  by  which  he  might 
be  able  to  pass  from  the  self  over  to  the  world.  So  much  does 
Descartes  emphasize  this  point  of  view  that  he  reduces  man  to 
little  more  than  a  cognitive  somewhat. 

The  reaction  away  from  this  domain  of  the  reason  is  to  be 
seen  in  Paschal  (1623-62),  the  French  scientist  and  reHgious  phi- 
losopher. He  was  far  from  locating  religion  in  the  domain  of 
reason,  and  his  conception  was  that  of  a  diametrical  opposition 
of  the  one  to  the  other.  This  did  not  result  in  his  throwing  religion 
overboard  because  he  could  not  make  it  conform  to  the  demands  of 
reason.  But  rather  he  determined  to  hold  to  religion  and  to 
defend  it  in  the  face  of  the  difficulties  which  it  encountered  from 
the  side  of  reason.  This  he  did  by  giving  to  reason  what  he  con- 
sidered to  be  its  rightful  place  in  the  realm  of  feeling.  We  are 
famihar  with  his  famous  dictum:  "Le  coeur  a  ses  raisons  que  le 
raison  ne  connait  pas."  But  the  fact  that  he  finds  a  legitimate 
place  for  religion  in  the  domain  of  the  faculty  of  feeling  does  not 
prevent  him  from  being  a  first-rate  scientist.  In  the  spheres  of 
mathematics  and  physics  his  discoveries  were  epoch-making. 

In  Immanuel  Kant  we  come  to  the  man  who  stood  for  the 
domination  of  the  third  faculty,  namely,  that  of  the  practical 


20        THE  RELATION  BETWEEN  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE 

reason  or  will.  Descartes  had  criticized  ideas;  Kant  criticized 
ideational  processes.  He  knocked  the  bottom  out  of  all  the  stock 
intellectualistic  arguments  for  the  existence  of  God.  He  also 
argued  that  God  cannot  be  an  object  of  sensuous  perception  either 
to  men  or  to  himself,  so  that  disposes  of  the  faculty  of  reason  and 
sensibility  as  spheres  within  which  to  get  a  basis  for  rehgion.  And 
he  resorts  to  the  will  or  practical  reason  as  the  guaranty  of  our 
faith  in  God,  in  freedom,  and  in  immortality.  It  was  the  urge  of 
the  moral  problem  which  drove  him  to  the  conclusion  to  which  he 
eventually  came.  We  must  have  God  or  there  is  no  sufficient 
guaranty  of  the  existence  of  the  moral  order  in  the  universe  and 
of  the  ultimate  victory  of  the  good  over  the  evil. 

Thus  we  have  in  Descartes,  Paschal,  and  Kant  the  experiment 
of  trying  out  successively  the  three  faculties  of  judgment,  sensibil- 
ity, and  volition  as  a  means  of  securing  a  unity  of  the  psychical 
processes  and  as  a  basis  for  religious  assurance.  And  the  interesting 
observation  which  we  may  make  is  that  all  three  men  were  in  favor 
of  giving  to  science  a  free  hand  in  proceeding  with  the  work  which 
belonged  to  its  sphere.  Each  of  them  was  a  man  of  wide  scientific 
knowledge,  an  authority  in  his  own  sphere  in  the  day  in  which  he 
lived.  Descartes  was  learned  in  mathematics,  being  one  of  the 
founders  of  analytical  geometry,  and  also  learned  in  anatomy  and 
physiology;  so  that  his  science  gave  to  him  the  method  with  which 
he  proceeded  to  carry  on  his  philosophical  speculations.  In 
Paschal,  too,  we  have  a  man  of  great  learning  as  a  mathematician 
and  a  physicist.  His  name  is  connected  with  the  science  of  hydro- 
dynamics as  one  of  its  founders,  and  stands  high  in  the  annals  of 
the  mathematical  sciences  as  a  contributor  to  progress  in  more 
than  one  direction.  Immanuel  Kant  was  also  an  authority  in 
matters  of  science  as  well  as  philosophy  in  his  day.  Among  the 
subjects  which  he  taught  in  the  University  of  Konigsberg  were 
logic,  metaphysics,  and  cosmography.  He  attained  special  distinc- 
tion for  his  work  in  physical  geography,  the  well-known  nebular 
hypothesis  being  associated  with  his  name. 

Other  names  might  have  been  added  to  those  cited  to  show 
that  the  tendencies  to  make  one  of  these  three  faculties  as  the 
dominant  one  is  a  recurring  tendency.    We  might  have  included 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  PSYCHOLOGICAL  THEORY  21 

Hegel  in  the  group  of  those  who  emphasize  the  intellectual  element ; 
and  Schleiermacher  with  his  definition  of  religion  as  "a  feeling  of 
absolute  dependence"  might  be  placed  in  the  group  of  those  who 
put  the  emphasis  on  the  sensibilities;  and  Royce,  who  thought  of 
religion  as  the  will  to  be  socially  minded  in  terms  of  the  "beloved 
community,"  is  a  type  of  those  who  emphasize  the  will.  , 

We  owe  to  the  faculty  psychologists  a  second  reaction  which 
has  direct  bearing  on  our  specific  problem.  Reference  has  already 
been  made  in  the  discussion  regarding  Descartes  to  the  relationship 
which  Dewey  describes  as  a  compact  between  science  and  religion 
that  each  would  not  infringe  upon  that  territory  which  was  held 
to  be  sacred  by  the  other.'  And  this  seems  to  be  the  general 
position  assumed  by  men  of  that  type  of  thought,  excepting,  of 
course,  those  who  seek  for  a  harmonizing  device  among  the  faculties 
in  the  form  of  an  external  control,  such  as  Bible  or  church.  But 
men  of  the  type  to  which  reference  has  been  made — Descartes, 
Paschal,  Kant — ^represent  faculty  psychology  with  a  thoroughly 
human  reference.  And  the  tendency  among  all  men  of  the  type 
is  to  assume  that  religion  and  science  each  dwells  in  a  glass  house 
at  which  the  other  dare  not  throw  stones.  There  is  a  legitimate 
sphere  for  each  of  them  in  the  processes  of  life,  and  no  occasion 
for  any  cross-fertilization. 

In  the  system  originating  with  Albrecht  Ritschl  (1822-89)  we 
have  a  splendid  example  of  the  manner  of  dealing  with  the  problem 
of  the  relation  of  science  to  religion  from  the  point  of  view  of 
faculty  psychology.  For  Ritschl  rehgion  was  antithetical  to 
mechanistic  science.  It  was  a  spiritual  freedom  which  comes 
through  cormnunion  with  the  one  God  in  the  person  of  Jesus  and 
in  the  living  community  of  God  to  which  the  Scriptures  refer  as  the 
"Kingdom  of  God."  Ritschl  acknowledged  that  he  was  a  disciple 
of  Lotze,  and  we  have  already  noted  that  he  was  the  most  radical 
of  all  the  faculty  psychologists.  The  result,  it  would  seem,  of 
Ritschl's  discipleship  to  Lotze  is  that  he  has  acquired  a  faculty 
theory  of  the  functions  of  religion  and  science.  He  distinguished 
them  by  sajdng  that  science  gives  us  existential  judgments,  whereas 
religion  gives  us  value-judgments.     The  aim  of  the  religious  man 

'Page  19  above. 


22        THE  RELATION  BETWEEN  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE 

is  entirely  at  variance  with  the  aim  of  the  man  of  science,  the 
former  being  interested  in  the  conservation  and  interpretation  of 
estabhshed  values,  while  the  other  desires  rather  to  interpret 
reahty  mechanistically  in  the  terms  of  causal  relationships.  To 
explain  a  thing  scientifically  means  that  you  show  the  causal  nexus, 
so  that  if  science  accomplished  its  task  fully  it  would  give  us  the 
complete  explanation  of  phenomena  in  terms  of  causality.  Ritschl 
places  these  two  realms  in  such  marked  antithesis  to  one  another 
that  he  thinks  a  scientific  attempt  to  deal  with  the  values  of 
religion  would  put  religion  out  of  business.  A  man  working  in  the 
realm  of  science  might  come  to  the  conclusion  that  there  is  no 
adequate  ground  for  a  belief  in  God.  But  even  then  the  fact  of 
Jesus  will  make  such  an  impression  on  his  emotional  experience 
that  he  will  be  compelled  from  the  point  of  view  of  value- judgment 
to  make  an  affirmation.  In  this  way  Ritschl  makes  religion 
independent  of  science.  At  the  same  time  he  is  willing  that  the 
scientist  should  enjoy  the  fullest  liberty  within  his  own  field,  which 
field  he  marks  off  very  concisely  by  calling  it  the  sphere  within 
which  existential  judgments  are  made.  The  following  quotations 
from  his  own  words  will  show  explicitly  how  he  has  dealt  with 
the  matter : 

Scientific  knowledge  is  accompanied  or  guided  by  a  judgment  affirming 
the  worth  of  impartial  knowledge  gained  by  observation.  In  Christianity, 
religious  knowledge  consists  in  independent  value-judgments,  inasmuch  as  it 
deals  with  the  relation  between  the  blessedness  which  is  assured  by  God  and 
sought  by  man,  and  the  whole  of  the  world  which  God  has  created  and  rules  in 
harmony  with  his  final  end.' 

The  lordship  over  this  world  which  Christianity  bestows  upon  men  is  not 
to  be  taken  in  an  empirical  sense.  So  that  it  is  of  no  consequence  what  position 
the  planet,  with  which  our  existence  is  bound  up,  occupies  in  the  universe. 
....  It  is  impossible  to  perceive  how  this  should  invalidate  the  estimate 

of  self  which  Christianity  leads   men   to   form Our  spiritual   Ufe  is 

subject  to  laws  which  are  not  related  to  known  natural  laws  as  their  conse- 
quences, but  come  under  an  exact  opposite  category Collisions  between 

religion  and  science,  especially  natural  science,  are  only  when  laws  which  are 
valid  for  narrower  realms  of  nature  or  spirit  are  erected  into  world  laws.* 

"  Albrecht  Ritschl,  Justification  and  Reconciliation,  p.  207. 
^  Ibid.,  pp.  614-16. 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  PSYCHOLOGICAL  THEORY  23 

The  criticism  of  this  position  is  that  it  is  so  dualistic  that  it  keeps 
rehgion  and  science  in  two  separate  and  distinct  planes.  Science 
is  in  the  plane  of  existence.  Religion  is  practically  supernatural; 
at  least  it  is  placed  in  a  sphere  of  reality  which  is  unique  and  which 
does  not  supply  any  data  with  which  science  can  deal.  Science 
moves  altogether  in  the  realm  of  the  objective,  whereas  religion 
has  a  right  to  put  up  a  sign  over  the  subjective  sphere:  No  tres- 
passing allowed.  Moreover,  the  distinction  between  existence- 
judgments  and  value-judgments  can  hardly  be  validated.  Ex- 
perience does  not  find  any  such  antithesis  between  the  two  kinds 
of  judgments.  The  judging  process  means  the  classification  of 
certain  things,  which  means  that  you  have  evaluated  them  accord- 
ing to  certain  standards.  It  is  also  true  that  any  judgment, 
whether  it  be  one  of  value  or  not,  implies  the  existence  of  that 
which  is  being  judged.  The  truth  of  the  matter  is  that,  as  there 
can  be  no  valid  line  drawn  between  existence- judgments  and 
judgments  of  value  just  because  they  are  constantly  intermingling, 
so  there  is  a  constant  intermingling  of  the  religious  and  scientific 
interests,  and  the  differentiation  will  have  to  be  sought  in  another 
direction. 

Professor  Ames  has  keenly  criticized  the  approach  of  the 
faculty  psychology  to  the  problems  of  life  when  he  stated  that  this 
particular  form  of  psychology  arose  ''historically  with  individual- 
ism, while  individuahsm  in  turn  accompanied  the  differentiation 
of  the  old  social  unity  into  various  activities.'" 

Before  passing  to  a  consideration  of  the  functional  psychology 
with  its  implications  for  our  problem,  there  are  still  some  move- 
ments that  are  out  of  the  general  stream  of  thought  that  we  should 
note. 

I.  In  the  first  place,  positivism  is  a  movement  with  which  we 
shall  have  to  reckon.  Positivism  owes  its  genesis  to  Auguste  Comte 
(i 798-1857),  who  began  by  saying  that  human  thought  had  passed 
through  two  stages  and  is  now  entering  a  third.  Of  these  the  first 
is  the  theological  stage,  the  chief  characteristic  of  which  is  animism. 
The  second  is  the  metaphysical  stage  when  things  that  exist  are 
accounted  for  by  philosophical  substances.     The  third  stage,  which 

'  E.  S.  Ames,  The  Psychology  of  Religious  Experience,  p.  289. 


24        THE  RELATION  BETWEEN  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE 

is  the  one  upon  which  the  race  is  now  entering,  is  the  positive.  We 
do  not  look  for  spirits  nor  metaphysical  substances  nor  gods,  but 
we  try  to  discover  empirically  the  laws  which  bind  us  together.  On 
this  basis  Comte  proceeded  to  a  classification  of  the  sciences,  in 
which  he  begins  with  mathematics  and  ends  with  sociology.  But 
the  striking  thing  is  that  in  his  classification  of  the  sciences  Comte 
did  not  find  a  place  for  psychology.  The  mechanical  way  in  which 
he  has  dealt  with  the  history  of  the  race  is  evidence  of  his  lack  of 
psychological  sympathy.  And  the  result  is  just  what  we  might 
expect  of  one  who  neglects  psychology.  God  is  ruled  out  of  the 
game,  and  religion  is  curbed  by  an  over-intellectualism.  The 
center  of  interest  is  humanity,  which  he  capitalizes  as  "Le  Grand 
Etre"  and  elevates  to  a  place  of  worship.  In  this  way  Comte 
attempts  to  keep  religion  in  the  real  world  in  which  science  also 
moves,  and  attempts  to  find  a  synthetic  relationship  between  the 
two  disciplines.  When  human  culture  attains  its  highest  level, 
then  religion  will  pass  away.  Its  place  will  be  taken  by  sociology, 
which  is  the  Rome  to  which  all  the  roads  of  the  sciences  lead.  In 
the  meantime  Comte  recognizes  the  utihty  of  the  religious  illusion, 
and  he  himself  proceeds  to  build  up  a  cult  of  humanity  by  a  whole- 
sale borrowing  from  the  Catholic  liturgy. 

2.  Scientific  agnosticism  is  the  name  which  has  been  given  to 
the  system  which  has  been  propounded  by  Herbert  Spencer  (1820- 
1903).  The  contribution  to  thought  for  which  his  name  is  famed 
is  the  doctrine  of  the  Unknowable.  In  his  Principles  oj  Psychology 
Spencer  proposes  to  explain  the  activities  of  human  mind  geneti- 
cally, but  in  the  question  of  the  relation  between  psychosis  and 
neurosis,  of  mind  and  matter,  he  is  vague.  His  mechanical  evo- 
lutionary scheme  leads  him  to  suggest  that  the  mind  is  composed 
of  homogeneous  units  of  consciousness,  similar  to  nervous  shocks, 
each  of  which  finds  a  parallel  in  the  physical  movements  of  nature. 
At  the  same  time  he  posits  substance  as  an  unknowable  substratum 
of  phenomena,  and  speaks  of  the  relation  of  the  mind  to  matter  as  a 
relation  of  two  unknowable  substances,  and  therefore  something 
which  is  to  be  left  to  the  province  of  the  Unknowable.  This 
unknowableness  which  he  finds  in  his  psychological  investigations 
he  carries  into  his  other  fields,  where  he  deals  with  our  problem  of 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  PSYCHOLOGICAL  THEORY  25 

the  relation  of  religion  to  science.  It  is  his  conviction  that  science 
and  religion  alike  must  reach  the  conclusion  that  the  "most  certain 
of  all  facts  is  that  the  Power  which  the  universe  manifests  to  us  is 
utterly  inscrutable."  Rehgion  is  the  unknown  and  unknowable 
mystery.  Science  too  has  to  recognize  that  the  ultimate  source  of 
things  is  unknowable.  For  Spencer  science  is  positive  and  religion 
is  negative.  It  is  sufficient  from  his  point  of  view  to  demonstrate 
that  positive  science  is  unable  to  cover  the  whole  range  of  ex- 
perience. Religion  is  a  sense  of  mystery,  and  that  involves  an 
agnostic  element.  In  science  the  more  our  knowledge  increases, 
the  larger  seems  the  field  of  nescience.  So  Spencer  found  that  a 
reconciliation  between  these  two  spheres  is  possible  only  as  each  of 
them  realizes  that  neither  of  them  can  dominate  over  the  other, 
and  that  both  in  the  end  have  to  come  to  the  ultimate  reality  of 
things  to  find  their  legitimate  place,  and,  as  we  have  seen,  that 
ultimate  reality  is  Unknowable.  So  we  find  in  Spencer  the  same 
sort  of  agnosticism  in  his  attempts  to  deal  with  the  problem  of  the 
relationship  between  science  and  religion  as  have  characterized  his 
psychological  dissertations. 

3.  Another  movement  that  demands  attention  is  evolutionistic 
monism,  of  which  the  leading  exponents  are  Haeckel  and  Ostwald. 
Monism  means  the  fundamental  unifying  of  all  thinking  and  acting. 
It  desires  to  eliminate  root  and  branch  the  last  vestige  of  super- 
naturalism.  Science  insists  on  having  the  whole  field  to  itself. 
Religion  is  not  to  be  permitted  to  enjoy  an  independent  field  at  all. 
Haeckel  proposes  a  monism  of  substance.  Under  the  laws  of 
substance  he  would  unite  the  scientific  laws  of  the  conservation  of 
energy  and  of  the  conservation  of  matter.  Matter  and  energy, 
he  claimed,  are  two  separate  attributes  of  the  fundamental  sub- 
stance. He  arrives  at  a  virtual  hylozoism,  since  he  regards  energy 
and  spirit  as  one.  According  to  his  system,  psychology  is  merely 
a  branch  of  physiology,  and  psychical  activity  is  nothing  more 
than  a  group  of  vital  phenomena  which  depend  entirely  on  physi- 
ological and  material  changes  that  are  taking  place  in  the  proto- 
plasm of  the  organ.     He  says: 

Scientific  psychology  is  a  part  of  physiology,  the  doctrine  of  the  functions 
and  the  Ufe-activities  of  the  organisms.    The  psychology  and  psychiatry 


26        THE  RELATION  BETWEEN  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE 

of  the  future,  like  the  physiology  and  pathology  of  today,  must  take  the  form 
of  cellular  study,  and  in  the  first  instance  investigate  the  soul-functions  of 
the  cells.' 

Again  he  says: 

Consciousness,  like  feeling  and  willing,  among  the  higher  animals  is  a 
mechanical  work  of  the  ganglion-cells,  and  as  such  may  be  carried  back  to 
chemical  and  physical  events  in  the  plasma  of  these.^ 

So  that  for  Haeckel  every  living  cell  was  regarded  as  possess- 
ing psychical  properties.  In  the  case  of  Haeckel  we  have  that 
happening  which  we  might  expect  of  one  who  places  physiology 
completely  over  psychology.  Religion  is  ruled  out  by  science 
in  the  same  summary  fashion  that  psychology  was  ruled  out 
by  physiology.  Haeckel  was  a  biologist,  and  he  was  interested  in 
getting  an  unbroken  chain  of  causal  cormectedness  on  the  basis  of 
biological  evolution.  And  for  him  the  biological  causal  explana- 
tions of  phenomena,  which  must  form  an  unbroken  series,  does  away 
with  the  necessity  of  or  the  place  for  a  God.  Religion,  he  takes  for 
granted,  deals  with  the  miraculous,  and  since  science  by  organizing 
a  complete  chain  of  causes  does  away  with  the  miraculous,  religion 
is  left  stranded  on  a  shore  that  is  barren  of  any  material  for  the 
continuation  of  its  work. 

The  work  of  Haeckel  has  been  carried  on  by  Ostwald.  The 
former  was  a  biologist ;  the  latter  is  a  chemist.  So  that  the  funda- 
mental difference  between  the  two  men  is  to  be  found  in  the  science 
in  which  each  is  interested.  The  constant  factor  is  monism. 
Ostwald  declared  the  laws  of  energy  to  be  the  laws  of  reaHty.  These 
he  summarized  as  (i)  the  law  of  the  conservation  of  energy,  and 
(2)  the  law  of  the  dissipation  of  energy.  The  siun-total  of  energy 
remains  the  same,  but  there  are  some  processes  which  cannot  be 
reversed.  For  Ostwald  energy  was  a  sufficiently  spiritualized 
concept  that  it  was  able  to  take  care  of  all  the  phenomena  of  both 
the  physical  and  psychical  spheres.  He  even  imitated  Kant's 
categorical  imperative  with  his  energetic  imperative:  "Economize 
energy. "  So  that  Ostwald  in  his  system,  which  is  an  attempt  to  do 
away  with  the  necessity  of  religion,  is  required  to  read  into  the 
mechanical  concept  emotional  significance.     In  other  words,  he 

I  Ernst  Haeckel,  Monism,  pp.  42,  43.  *  Ibid.,  pp.  47,  48. 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  PSYCHOLOGICAL  THEORY  27 

has  to  borrow  from  that  very  field  of  life  which  in  the  beginning  he 
had  repudiated.  And  in  the  case  of  both  of  these  evolutionistic 
monists,  Haeckel  and  Ostwald,  we  see  that  the  reduction  of  psy- 
chology has  been  accompanied  with  a  reduction  of  religion,  an 
apparent  neglect  to  take  accoimt  of  all  the  facts  of  life  resulting 
in  this  parallel  reduction. 

V 

Contemporary  psychological  thought  introduces  us  to  a  new 
stage  in  the  history  of  the  science.  The  change  has  been  on  the 
way  ever  since  the  time  of  Charles  Darwin. 

With  the  coming  of  the  evolution  theory,  especially  in  the  form  of  the 
"natural  selection"  hypothesis  of  Darwin,  considerations  of  origin,  develop- 
ment, and  growth  came  systematically  into  the  natural  sciences.  Psychology 
in  time  felt  the  impulse;  and  gradually  the  genetic  concept  and  method  be- 
came current.  The  progress  of  Darwinism  in  the  mental  and  moral  sciences 
shows  itself  in  certain  of  the  departments  of  psychology  in  which  specializa- 
tion has  recently  taken  place:  normal  genetic  psychology,  child-psychology, 
animal-psychology,  and  race-psychology.' 

Thus  we  see  that  the  change  is  one  of  methodolog3\  The  evolu- 
tionistic hypothesis  has  worked  its  way  into  the  study  of  the  mental 
processes,  as  well  as  into  the  other  biological  processes.  And  the 
study  of  how  things  came  to  be  is  essentially  a  functional  study. 
It  is  through  the  understanding  of  functions  that  we  appreciate 
the  evolving  structures.  We  regard  psychology  now  as  taking  its 
place  among  the  biological  sciences.  The  antithesis  which  was 
once  thought  to  exist  between  the  physical  and  the  psychical  has 
disappeared.  The  rationalistic  philosophy  of  the  seventeenth  and 
eighteenth  centuries  had  as  its  corollary  a  rational  or  faculty 
psychology.  Rationalism  is  logical;  psychological  science  today 
is  biological.  The  adoption  of  this  biological  point  of  view  imphes 
that  consciousness  must  be  studied  in  connection  with  the  psycho- 
logical processes  with  which  we  have  learned  to  deal  genetically. 
The  gist  of  the  matter  is  that — 

the  real  human  organism  is  a  psycho-physical  organism,  and  that  the  mental 
portion  of  it  is  not  to  be  completely  or  correctly  apprehended  without  reference 
to  the  physiological  portion.    The  psycho-physical  organism  is,  moreover, 

'James  Mark  Baldwin,  History  of  Psychology,  II,  94. 


28        THE  RELATION  BETWEEN  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE 

a  real  unit.  The  separation  of  the  mind  from  the  body  which  we  commonly 
make  in  thinking  about  them  is  a  separation  made  on  behalf  of  some  one  of 
our  theoretical  or  practical  interests,  and  as  such  the  separation  is  often 
serviceable.  In  actual  life  experience,  however,  the  two  things  are  never 
separated.^ 

Professor  Angell  gathers  some  of  the  evidence  to  establish  his 
thesis  of  the  essential  unity  of  the  psychical  and  the  physical. 
Of  the  points  of  evidence  he  mentions  (i)  "that  our  consciousness 
or  knowledge  of  the  world  depends  primarily  on  our  use  of  the 
senses,"  (2)  "that  the  expressions  of  the  mind  ordinarily  take  the 
form  of  muscular  movements  which  we  call  acts,"  (3)  that  a 
pathological  condition  of  the  brain  is  accompanied  by  a  pathological 
condition  in  some  portion  of  the  conscious  life.^  When  a  man  acts, 
we  do  not  think  of  saying  any  more  that  his  action  is  to  be  traced 
to  some  one  of  the  life-processes  which  in  that  particular  action 
shows  itself  to  be  evidently  dominant  at  the  time  that  the  action 
takes  place.  But  action  is  the  result  of  the  unified  life-process 
responding  to  some  stimulus.  One  element  may  be  more  affected 
than  the  other  in  the  reaction  to  the  stimulus,  but  the  organism 
which  responds  is  a  unity.  The  reaction  is  the  reaction  of  a  single 
organism.  As  we  shall  presently  see,  this  unity  of  the  psycho- 
physical organism  can  scarcely  be  exaggerated  in  its  importance 
for  the  specific  problem  which  we  are  considering. 

That  leads  to  the  further  remark  that  functional  psychology 
is  behavioristic.  Formerly  psychology  was  regarded  as  that 
science  which,  as  Professor  Ladd  said,  deals  with  the  states  of 
consciousness  as  such.  But  today,  though  it  is  still  regarded  as 
the  science  of  consciousness,  it  is  not  the  science  of  states  so  much 
as  a  science  of  phenomena.  It  deals  with  facts,  and  attempts  to 
classify  its  observations  in  much  the  same  way  that  the  botanist 
or  the  zoologist  deals  with  his  materials.  The  life-processes  are 
motor  as  well  as  mental,  and  the  motor  phenomena  give  us  the  key 
to  the  mental,  so  that  human  behavior  furnishes  psychology  with 
the  data  for  the  interpretation  of  human  creations.  The  study  of 
that  which  is  done  is  the  primary  thing.  The  social  psychologist 
helps  us  materially  at  this  point  with  his  description  of  the  rise  of 

'  J.  R.  Angell,  Psychology,  p.  8.  '  Ibid.,  pp.  13-15- 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  PSYCHOLOGICAL  THEORY  29 

consciousness.  He  deals  with  behavior,  with  the  act  as  the  starting- 
point.  Action  is  determined  by  the  instinctive  impulse  directed 
toward  the  satisfaction  of  some  felt  need.  There  are  certain  in- 
fluences which  tend  to  reinforce  and  others  which  tend  to  inhibit 
the  impulse.  Sometimes  by  association  one  impulse  will  tend  to 
call  forth  another.  Again,  one  impulse  may  function  as  an  inhibi- 
tion to  another.  Now  consciousness  arises  from  the  necessity  for 
a  selective  process,  picking  out  the  impulse  which  it  will  set  free, 
and  also  the  forms  which  it  will  utilize  for  the  satisfaction  of  the 
impulses.  Thus  consciousness  arises  in  a  social  process,  whereby 
the  act,  which  is  social,  is  made  the  bond  of  connection  between 
the  subject-self  and  the  object-self.  This  means  that  there  is  a 
whole  mass  of  data,  which  hitherto  psychology  has  passed  over 
superficially,  which  now  affords  the  psychologist  a  laboratory  in 
which  to  work,  viz.,  the  study  of  the  instincts,  impulses,  habits, 
attitudes,  actions,  functions,  etc.  In  other  words,  the  data  of 
functional  psychology  are  concrete  and  biological,  whereas  those 
of  the  older  psychology  were  abstract  and  logical. 

The  conception  of  psychology  as  a  biological  science  carries 
with  it  certain  implications  for  us.  It  is,  to  be  sure,  a  part  of  that 
larger  movement  which  makes  all  science  biological  in  the  sense 
that  it  is  a  servant  of  life,  so  that  the  only  excuse  for  scientific 
labor  in  any  field  is  that  it  may  minister  to  and  enrich  hfe,  giving  it 
a  better  technique  of  control  over  the  mechanical  environment. 
But,  to  be  more  specific,  the  treatment  of  psychology  as  a  biological 
science  means  that  the  mind  is  to  be  regarded  not  as  an  entity 
but  as  an  instrument,  "an  instrument  of  adaptation  by  which  the 

organism  adjusts  itself  to  the  environment The  conception 

of  the  mind  as  an  instrument  of  adjustment  and  adaptation  is  a 
biological  conception,  and  marks  the  radical  transformation  which 
psychology  has  undergone  through  the  influence  of  the  science  of 
biology."^  We  have  a  parallelism  in  the  pragmatic  notion  of  the 
instrumental  character  of  ideas.  In  theology  it  gives  us  an  instru- 
mental doctrine  of  the  character  of  religious  dogmas  and  formulas. 
The  meaning  of  this  doctrine  of  instrumentalism,  whether  it  be 
employed  in  psychology,  philosophy,  or  theology,  means  that  life 
'E.  S.  Ames,  The  Psychology  of  Religions  Experience,  p.  15. 


30        THE  RELATION  BETWEEN  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE 

is  made  the  center  of  interest,  and  that  all  these  instruments  are  so 
named  from  their  ability  to  function  as  ministers  to  the  developing 
life-processes.  This  gives  to  us  a  method  for  dealing  with  religion 
and  science.  The  instrumental  doctrine  is  valid  here  also,  as  in 
all  other  spheres.  Our  religious  knowledge  and  our  scientific 
knowledge,  and  equally  art,  morality,  politics,  etc.,  are  instruments 
in  the  service  of  life  as  it  makes  its  adjustments  and  adaptations 
within  the  environment  which  is  the  sphere  of  experience.  Religion 
and  science  arose  biologically  as  ministers  to  life,  just  as  surely  as 
did  the  eye  or  the  ear.  They  do  something  for  Hfe  which  life  needs 
to  have  done  for  it.  "  That  ye  may  have  life,  and  that  ye  may  have 
it  more  abundantly"  is  the  underlying  motive  of  both  religion  and 
science. 

The  thesis  which  I  propose  is  that  religion  and  science  are 
differentiable  attitudes  toward  the  extra-human  environment, 
involving  specific  ends  and  techniques  for  the  attainment  of  those 
ends,  and  that  these  attitudes  are  the  outgrowth  of  those  ineradi- 
cable tendencies  of  life  which  we  call  innate  and  instinctive,  so  that 
both  genetically  and  functionally  they  may  be  said  to  be  biological. 

Inasmuch  as  the  differentiation  of  the  various  disciplines  of 
life — religion,  science,  aesthetics,  ethics,  et  alia — has  a  functional 
evolution,  and  is  not  localizable  in  the  behavior  of  primitive 
peoples,  the  order  of  procedure  is  determined  for  us  as : 

1.  An  attempt  to  define  the  differentia  of  the  religious  and 
scientific  attitudes,  or  the  question  of  their  psycho-physical  func- 
tions. 

2.  An  endeavor  to  discover  the  genetic  elements  in  the  innate 
and  instinctive  behavior  out  of  which  these  differentiated  attitudes 
have  evolved,  or  the  question  of  their  psycho-physical  genesis. 


CHAPTER  III 
THE  DIFFERENTIA  OF  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE 

The  differentiation  between  religion  and  science,  on  a  psycho- 
logical basis,  is  to  be  made  in  the  realm  of  attitudes.  It  is  the 
intent  of  this  chapter  to  make  such  an  examination  of  these  atti- 
tudes as  will  make  clear  in  what  respects  they  may  be  differentiated. 

A  functional  point  of  view  in  psychology,  as  we  have  observed, 
is  concerned  with  an  organism  which  is  regarded  as  a  unity.  It  is 
impossible  to  separate  man  in  the  ways  that  either  the  duaUsts  or 
the  faculty  psychologists  tried  to  do.  The  psychical  and  the 
physical  aspects  of  Ufe  are  inextricably  woven  together.  So  the 
cognitive,  the  affective,  and  the  conative  phases  of  the  mental 
processes  are  strands  interwoven  in  the  warp  and  woof  of  a  unified 
life.  ReHgion  and  science  are  to  be  interpreted  in  that  light  as 
products  of  human  life  which  is  regarded  as  an  organic  unity. 
There  are  no  mental  compartments  or  pigeonholes  which  have 
served  as  molds  for  these  two  disciplines,  and  into  which  they  may 
be  fitted  ad  libitum. 

The  real  differentiation  of  religion  and  science,  considered 
psychologically,  is  to  be  found  in  the  realm  of  attitudes.  By  an 
attitude  I  mean  a  disposition  to  attend  or  to  act  in  a  specific  manner. 
Contemporary  psychologists  regard  attitudes  as  the  unifying 
agency  in  mental  life,  and  the  attitudes  of  habit  (i.e.,  of  conserv- 
ing the  type)  and  of  accommodation  (i.e.,  of  modifying  the  type)  as 
the  manner  in  which  mental  development  proceeds  through  the 
organization  of  experience.  The  religious  attitude  is,  therefore,  a 
habitual  disposition  to  seize  upon  the  spiritual  elements  of  the 
extra-human  environment  and  to  organize  and  conserve  them  in 
the  interests  of  hfe.  In  differentiation  from  that,  the  scientific 
attitude  may  be  described  as  the  habitual  disposition  to  make 
adjustment  to  and  to  gain  control  of  the  mechanical  forces  in  the 
extra-human  environment  for  the  sake  of  life.^ 

'  To  be  sure,  there  are  other  attitudes  which  may  be  and  are  assumed  under  certain 
circumstances;  as,  e.g.,  the  moral,  which  is  the  disposition  to  enter  into  mutually 
desirable  social  relationships  with  the  human  environment;  and  the  aesthetic,  which 
is  the  disposition  to  appreciate  the  beautiful  in  the  environment. 

31 


32        THE  RELATION  BETWEEN  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE 

I,  It  will  be  apparent  that  the  position  adhered  to  is  in  har- 
mony with  that  so  ably  defended  by  Dr.  Watson  in  tracing  the 
differentia  in  terms  of  a  "social"  as  against  a  "mechanical"^ 
attitude  toward  the  non-human  environment.^  I  choose  this  dif- 
ferentiation as  basic  because,  in  the  first  place,  it  is  broad  enough 
and  generic  enough  to  present  the  psychological  difference  between 
religions  and  sciences,  speaking  collectively;  and  in  the  second 
place,  because  the  definitions  include  all  the  historical  phenomena 
with  which  we  have  to  deal.  Many  of  the  so-called  definitions  of 
rehgion  are  selective  rather  than  definitive.  An  extreme  illustra- 
tion is  in  the  statement  of  the  fabled  bishop  who  said:  "By  religion, 
I  mean  the  Christian  reUgion;  by  the  Christian  religion,  I  mean 
Protestantism;  and  by  Protestantism,  I  mean  the  Church  of 
England."  This  is  simply  an  absurd  illustration  of  a  selective 
process  determining  a  man's  definition.  In  a  similar  way  some 
have  called  everything  pseudo-science  which  does  not  harmonize 
with  revelation  and  tradition. 

Spencer  and  Gillen  in  their  work  on  the  tribes  of  Central 
Australia  refer  to  one  particular  tribe,  the  Aruntas,  who,  so  far 
as  they  could  discover,  had  no  gods.  Yet  they  had  a  totemistic 
system  with  elaborate  ceremonials,  such  as  the  "intichuima" 
ceremony  for  the  increasing  of  the  supply  of  the  totem  animal^  in 
their  case  the  kangaroo  or  emu.^  This  is  a  definite  attempt  to 
socialize  with  the  extra-human  environment,  and  who  shall  deny 
that  the  attitude  is  religious  ? 

Again  let  me  refer  to  Hinayana  Buddhism.  Many  of  the 
definitions  of  religion  which  have  been  formulated  have  been  forced 
to  regard  Hinayana  Buddhism  as  merely  a  philosophy  and  to 
reject  it  as  a  religion,  the  reason  being  that  the  definition  of  religion 

'  The  words  "mechanical"  and  "mechanistic"  are  used  in  this  thesis  in  the  philo- 
sophical rather  than  the  physical  sense,  i.e.,  as  antithetical  to  organic. 

^  A.  C.  Watson,  "The  Logic  of  Religion,"  in  the  American  Journal  of  Theology, 
II,  81-101,  244-65.  The  definition  of  religion  used  by  C.  H.  Toy  is  in  agreement  with 
this  position:  "Religion  is  man's  attitude  toward  the  universe  regarded  as  a  social 
and  ethical  force;  it  is  the  sense  of  social  solidarity  with  objects  regarded  as  powers, 
and  the  institution  of  social  relations  with  them." — Introduction  to  the  History  of 
Religions,  p.  i. 

3  Spencer  and  Gillen,  The  Northern  Tribes  of  Central  Australia,  pp.  288  flf. 


THE  DIFFERENTIA  OF  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE  33 

used  called  for  a  deity  or  deities  which  did  not  come  into  Buddhism 
until  the  Mahayana  period.  Yet  it  seems  to  me  that  a  careful 
reading  of  such  literature  as  the  Dhamma  Pada  must  impress  the 
reader  with  the  fervor  of  a  soul  striving  to  make  a  real  religious 
adjustment — a  social  attitude  toward  the  cosmos.  No  definition 
of  religion  is  big  enough  which  excludes  Buddhism,  even  in  its 
earlier  form. 

So  too  the  definition  of  science  may  be  defended  for  its  breadth 
as  well  as  its  precision.  Astrology  was  superseded  by  astronomy, 
and  alchemy  gave  way  to  chemistry.  Nevertheless  each  of  these 
were  expressions  of  a  mechanical  attitude  toward  the  extra-human 
environment  which  it  would  be  incorrect  to  leave  out  of  account 
in  a  historical  account  of  the  sciences.  Science  is  not  confined  of 
necessity  to  that  which  is  true,  any  more  than  religion,  but  a 
scientific  attitude  is  assumed  in  all  the  efforts  to  gain  control  over 
the  non-human  environment  by  the  use  of  a  mechanistic  technique, 
however  imperfect. 

In  religion  and  science  we  are  not  dealing  with  two  separate 
environments,  but  we  have  two  techniques  for  dealing  with  the 
same  envirormient.  The  assumption  of  one  attitude  does  not 
preclude  one  from  assuming  another  toward  the  same  object.  Nor 
does  the  use  of  one  technique  prevent  the  other.  Consider  the 
rainhaw.asaiL  example.  The  scientist  with  his  mechanical  out- 
look is  able  to  explain  it  as  the  result  of  the  refraction  of  light  on 
water.  The  artist  with  his  aesthetic  point  of  view  sees  it  to  be  a 
thing  of  beauty.  The  Hebrews,  with  their  religious  attitude,  inter- 
preted it  as  the  sign-language  of  Yahweh  in  social  relationship  with 
his  people.  Analogously  in  time  of  war  the  different  attitudes 
appear  with  reference  to  the  course  of  events.  The  religious  inter- 
pretation sees  a  victory  or  a  defeat  as  an  indication  of  the  presence 
of  God  in  vindication  of  the  right  or  in  the  humiliation  of  the 
erring.  A  scientific  point  of  view  measures  victory  or  defeat  in 
terms  of  preparedness  and  strategy.  The  differentia  is  in  the  type 
of  the  attitudes,  both  of  which  are  perfectly  legitimate  because 
both  are  serviceable. 

Leuba  explains  the  differentiation  between  religion  and  science 
behavioristically.    He  says:   "Anthropomorphic  behavior  becomes 


34        THE  RELATION  BETWEEN  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE 

religion  when  it  is  directed  to  gods,  and  the  mechanical  becomes 
science  when  the  principle  of  quantitative  proportion  it  implies  is 
definitely  recognized."^  Doubtlessly  he  is  on  the  right  track,  but 
his  conclusions  are  all  of  them  discounted  somewhat  because  his 
definition  of  religion  restricts  it  to  a  belief  in  supernatural  agencies 
of  ontological  reference  to  which  man  relates  himself.^ 

The  objection  may  be  raised  that  the  differentiation  of  religion 
and  science  on  the  basis  of  a  social  versus  a  mechanical  attitude 
breaks  down  when  one  comes  to  examine  such  sciences  as  sociology, 
ethnology,  and  anthropology  where  the  subject-matter  is  persons, 
not  things.  The  answer  is  that  the  sociologist,  the  ethnologist,  and 
the  anthropologist  have,  to  be  sure,  to  adopt  a  social  attitude  when 
in  the  practical  business  of  collecting  their  data.  But  the  scientific 
task  itself  is  not  concerned  with  people  but  with  the  data,  the 
objective  facts  which  the  scientist  has  gathered  and  which  he  treats 
quite  mechanically.  If  he  is  unable  to  abandon,  even  temporarily, 
his  social  attitude,  he  may  be  a  good  social  worker,  but  he  vitiates 
his  ability  to  become  a  thorough  scientist. 

It  seems  to  me  to  be  another  way  of  describing  the  same  situa- 
tion to  say  that  the  rehgious  attitude  is  one  of  participation  as 
against  the  scientific,  which  is  analytical.^  The  gain  of  control  over 
all  forces  in  the  environment  to  aid  in  the  struggle  for  existence  is 
the  purpose  of  both.  Religion  seeks  to  obtain  that  control  by 
means  of  a  social  participation  with  the  process,  conceived  in 
personal  terms.  Science,  by  means  of  analysis  and  reflection,  puts 
us  in  a  position  to  deal  more  efficiently  by  mechanical  means  with 
a  fragment  of  experience.  The  technique  developed  in  the  former 
instance  is  the  cult;  in  the  latter  case  it  is  the  intellectual  and 
material  tools  of  the  theoretical  and  practical  sciences. 

2.  Another  point  of  differentiation  between  religion  and 
science  is  that  religion  is  concerned  with  life  in  its  totality,  whereas 
science  concerns  itself  with  certain  specific  situations.  It  is  a 
characteristic  of  the  social  attitude  which  men  take  toward  the 

^  J.  H.  Leuba,  The  Psychological  Origin  and  Nature  of  Religion,  p.  75. 
*  Ibid.,  p.  44. 

3  This  distinction  was  unfolded  by  Professor  E.  S.  Ames  in  his  lectures  in  the 
Psychology  of  Religion,  Philosophy  60,  University  of  Chicago,  autumn,  1916. 


THE  DIFFERENTIA  OF  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE  35 

extra-human  environment  that  they  regard  it  in  the  aggregate. 
In  worship  and  in  all  his  endeavors  to  establish  a  spiritual  fellow- 
ship, man  acts  as  though  he  regarded  the  power  or  powers  toward 
whom  he  assumes  the  social  attitude  as  of  cosmic  significance. 
Whether  the  supermundane  world  be  considered  monotheistically 
as  in  Christianity  and  Mohammedanism,  pantheistically  as  in 
Stoicism  and  Brahmanism,  or  pantheonically  as  in  the  Vedic  and 
Roman  religions,  religion  is  regarded  as  putting  one  into  relation- 
ship with  the  extra-physical  environment  in  its  wholeness.  The 
means  employed  to  establish  that  relationship  vary  with  the  cul- 
tural state  of  the  people  from  flattery,  bribery,  and  gaudy  gifts  to 
social  and  missionary  service,  ethically  conceived.  Religion  thus 
interprets  the  world  as  a  totality  in  terms  of  social  relationships 
which  are  with  a  view  to  living  with  it  in  such  a  way  as  to  secure 
satisfaction  for  the  spiritual  life. 

In  contrast  with  the  religious  attitude,  the  scientific  attitude 
concerns  itself  with  only  a  fragment  of  life.  The  sciences  are  only 
developed  sufliciently  to  provide  man  with  a  technique  for  a 
mechanical  manipulation  of  a  small  percentage  of  his  environment. 
And  any  one  science  concerns  itself  with  a  still  smaller  group  of 
phenomena  within  that  range.  So  that  the  scientific  attitude  at 
any  one  time  is  necessarily  selective.  One  evidence  of  the  selective 
process  in  science  is  that  a  thoroughly  scientific  manipulation 
depends  upon  the  situation  being  repeated  frequently  enough  to 
enable  observation  that  will  lead  to  generalization  and  the  develop- 
ment of  a  technique.  The  scientific  attitude  is  one  of  observation 
in  the  interest  of  mechanically  calculable  manipulations,  and  the 
human  powers  of  observation  imply  a  process  of  selection.  As 
Professor  Mead  has  said:  "The  scientist  always  deals  with  an 
actual  problem,  and  even  when  he  looks  before  and  after  he  does 
so  far  as  he  is  facing  in  inquiry  some  actual  problem.  No  actual 
problem  could  conceivably  take  on  the  form  of  a  conflict  involving 
the  whole  world  of  meaning."^ 

3.  Another  way  of  expressing  the  differentiation  between  the 
religious  and  scientific  attitudes  is  to  say  that  the  former  is  an 
evaluatory   and   the   latter   an   explanatory   attitude.     Professor 

'  G.  H.  Mead,  chapter  on  "Scientific  Method"  in  Creative  Intelligence,  p.  219. 


36        THE  RELATION  BETWEEN  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE 

Hoffding  has  the  merit  of  making  that  distinction  clear  in  the 
epistemological  section  of  his  great  work  on  the  philosophy  of 
religion.  "Only  against  their  will,"  he  says,  "was  it  gradually 
borne  in  on  the  representatives  of  religion  that  it  was  no  part  of 
the  work  of  religion  to  supply  a  scientific  explanation  of  the  world. 
What  is  now  commonplace  in  the  mouth  of  theologians,  viz.,  that 
we  must  not  look  to  the  Bible  to  teach  us  natural  science,  could 
not  get  a  hearing  in  the  days  of  Bruno,  GaHleo  and  Spinoza."^ 
The  scientific  temperament  is  historically  a  later  development  than 
the  rehgious.  It  was  impossible,  as  we  have  seen,  to  have  a 
thoroughly  scientific  attitude  so  long  as  the  deductive  method  held 
the  field.  But  the  introduction  of  induction  involved  a  more 
mechanical  way  of  approach,  as  it  freed  man  for  untrammeled 
observation  and  experimentation  leading  to  a  mechanical  technique, 
whereas  deduction  meant  subjugation  to  authority,  and  in  that 
sense  had  sometimes  a  measure  of  social  reference.  Science  was 
under  the  domination  of  the  church,  and  the  earliest  scientists  were 
priests.  It  was  only  gradually  that  science  won  her  freedom.  The 
result  has  been  that  some  scholars  have  declared  religion  to  be  the 
mother  of  science  as  well  as  of  art,  philosophy,  and  their  sister- 
disciplines.  Historically  there  is  a  measure  of  truth  in  the  idea, 
for  it  was  out  from  the  church  that  the  sciences  gradually  gained 
their  emancipation,  until  the  scientific  attitude  came  to  be  regarded 
as  having  a  right  to  an  independent  existence.^  On  the  psycho- 
logical side,  however,  it  would  be  better  to  speak  of  the  gradual 
differentiation  of  the  two  attitudes,  one  from  the  other,  than  of 
the  evolution  of  one  of  them  out  of  the  other. 

The  result  of  the  long  domination  of  the  church  over  science, 
coupled  with  the  use  of  the  deductive  method,  meant  that  religion 
was  continually  trying  to  assume  a  scientific  role.  It  indulged  in 
the  business  of  explanation,  i.e.,  of  placing  phenomena  in  their 

'Harold  Hoffding,  The  Philosophy  of  Religion,  pp.  14,  15. 

»  Friedrich  Daab,  in  his  essay,  "Religion  und  Wissenschaft,"  in  Das  Suchcn  der 
Zeit,  V  (1909),  123,  quotes  with  approval  from  Friedrich  Ritzel:  "Die  Religion  der 
Kulturarmen  Volker  faszt  alle  Keime  in  sich,  die  spater  den  herrlichen,  blutemreicher 
Wald  des  Geisteslebens  der  Kulturvolker  bilden  soUen;  sie  ist  Kunst  und  Wissen- 
schaft, Theologie  und  Philosophie  zugleich,  so  dasz  es  nichts  von  noch  so  feme  her  auf 
Ideales  Hinstrebendes  in  diesem  armen  Leben  gift,  das  nicht  von  ihr  umfaszt  wiirden." 


THE  DIFFERENTIA  OF  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE  37 

causal  sequence,  with  the  results  which  are  too  well  known  to  need 
delineation.  The  real  interest  of  religion  was  a  socialization  of 
the  environment,  so  that  explanation  became  a  reference  to  God, 
and  the  tools  were  Aristotehan.  The  First  Person  of  the  Christian 
Trinity  was  described  as  the  Prime  Mover,  himself  unmovable, 
the  First  Cause,  himself  uncaused.  Consequently  a  thoroughly 
scientific  explanation  of  phenomena  was  not  forthcoming  because 
the  attitude  of  religion  was  social  and  not  mechanical.  It  was  due 
to  the  observations  and  hypotheses  of  Galileo,  as  we  have  seen,  that 
this  old  world  of  thought  eventually  passed  away.  He  stated  the 
law  of  the  pendulum,  which  furnished  an  instance  of  self-motion 
in  opposition  to  the  mediaeval  notion  of  God-originated  motion. 
And  from  the  self-motion  of  the  pendulum  there  began  to  evolve 
the  scientific  notion  of  causality,  the  conception  of  relativity,  and 
the  age  of  freedom.  Likewise  the  reference  of  phenomena  to  a 
First  Cause  was  seen  to  be  simply  an  acknowledgment  of  scientific 
agnosticism,  and  with  the  progress  of  scientific  knowledge  the 
plausibility  of  religious  explanations  was  hazarded. 

Those  who  are  fearful  that  the  advance  of  science  carries  with 
it  as  a  necessary  corollary  the  corrosion  of  religion  are  under  the 
domination  of  that  mediaeval  conception  of  the  business  of  rehgion, 
viz.,  that  religion  is  concerned  with  ultimate  causes,  in  contrast 
with  science,  which  was  deemed  to  be  concerned  with  proximate 
causes.  Should  science  make  such  strides  of  progress  that  the  time 
would  come  when  she  would  be  able  to  give  a  thorough  causal 
account  of  phenomena,  what  would  become  of  religion?  If  her 
business  were  to  give  a  religious  explanation  as  against  a  scientific 
explanation,  she  would  be  in  danger  of  being  retired.  But  religion 
has  discovered  that  there  are  things  to  be  done  about  phenomena 
other  than  explaining  them.  Science  deals  with  time,  space,  cause, 
motion,  number,  etc.,  and  there  is  no  appraisal  in  any  of  these 
concepts.  After  science  has  finished  her  task,  be  it  ever  so  com- 
plete, in  explaining  any  phenomenon,  there  still  remains  the  religious 
task  of  evaluating  it  for  human  life.  So  that  advancement  of 
science  has  meant  in  the  long  run  the  emancipation  of  religion  for 
her  real  task,  as  well  as  the  liberation  of  science  for  greater  efiiciency 
within  her  own  domain. 


38        THE  RELATION  BETWEEN  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE 

Now  the  religious  attitude  is  one  of  evaluation,  in  which  the 
subject  seeks  to  appreciate  the  significance  or  extract  the  meaning 
from  phenomena  as  instruments  for  the  furtherance  of  human 
welfare.  This  point  has  been  so  ably  developed  by  recent  writers^ 
that  it  seems  to  be  unnecessary  for  the  purposes  of  this  thesis  to 
do  more  than  make  a  statement.  The  valuational  attitude  is 
essentially  one  of  appreciation  of  worthfulness  which  grows  as  the 
environment  is  related  socially  to  the  individual  or  the  group. 
"Certain  elements  in  the  life  of  a  people  come  to  consciousness  as 
having  peculiar  value,  and  therefore  the  religious  attitude  is  a 
special  case  of  the  larger  sense  of  value. "^  The  "peculiar  value" 
which  these  elements  possess  by  virtue  of  which  they  give  rise  to 
the  religious  attitude  is  that  they  are  serviceable  to  the  individual 
or  to  the  group  in  the  business  of  obtaining  spiritual  reinforcement 
by  the  use  of  a  social  technique.  Value  is  essentially  a  relativized 
social  concept,  and  it  takes  the  character  of  a  religious  value  when 
that  social  relationship  is  given  cosmic  reference.  Certain  events 
make  such  impress  on  a  man  and  influence  him  in  such  a  way  that 
those  events  have  the  value  of  God  to  him.  He  sees  in  them  more 
than  the  mechanism  of  law,  more  than  determinism,  though  he 
may  at  the  same  time  accept  the  causal  explanation  which  is 
presented  as  he  views  the  events  scientifically.  When  a  great 
catastrophe  occurs,  the  scientist  seeks  the  causal  sequence  of 
events  leading  up  to  the  catastrophe  with  a  view  to  preventing  a 
recurrence,  in  the  belief  that  "prevention  is  better  than  cure"; 
but  the  religious  man,  while  accepting  the  explanation  of  the 
scientist  as  quite  satisfactory,  still  claims  the  legitimate  right  to 
obtain  spiritual  worth  from  the  event  by  interpreting  its  signifi- 
cance in  terms  of  a  vocal  expression  in  a  social  relationship.  Science 
provides  the  explanation;  religion  extracts  the  meaning.  And 
again  I  say  the  evaluatory  attitude  of  the  religious  consciousness 
is  every  whit  as  legitimate  as  the  explanatory  attitude  of  the 
scientific  temperament  because  it  functions  as  a  powerful  aid  to 
man  in  the  struggle  for  existence. 

'Cf.  Hoffding,  The  Philosophy  of  Religion;  Irving  King,  The  Development  of 
Religion;  Ames,  The  Psychology  of  Religions  Experience;  Watson,  The  Logic  of 
Religion;  and  Wright,  The  Evolution  of  Values  from  Instincts. 

^  Irving  King,  The  Development  of  Religion,  p.  215. 


THE  DIFFERENTIA  OF  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE  39 

Hoffding  has  formulated  his  definition  of  religion  in  terms  of 
value,  defining  it  as  ''the  conservation  of  value. "^  He  was  doubt- 
less right  in  conceiving  the  question  of  value  to  be  a  great  concern 
of  religion.  But  the  difficulty  is  that  the  definition  rests  upon  the 
assumption  that  values  are  already  in  existence,  and  leaves  no 
room  for  the  achievement  of  new  values.  It  fails  to  provide  for 
the  creative  element  in  the  religious  valuational  attitude.  We  may 
apply  to  the  question  of  values  one  of  the  differentiations  which 
Professor  Daab  makes  between  religion  and  science,  viz.,  "Die 
Religion  schafft;  die  Wissenschaft  entdeckt."^ 

4.  Herbert  Spencer  answered  the  query  as  to  the  possibility 
of  religion  and  science  coexisting  by  saying  that  it  is  possible, 
since  it  is  a  fact  that  they  do  co-exist.  He  differentiated  the 
attitudes,  making  religion  qualitative  as  compared  with  the  quan- 
titative attitude  of  science.  ReHgion  has  for  its  object  the  Abso- 
lute, and  hence  deals  with  the  inscrutable.  The  sciences  attempt 
a  classification  of  objects  and  data  according  to  their  resemblance. 
Thus  the  religious  attitude  is  essentially  qualitative,  whereas  the 
scientific  attitude  is  rather  quantitative  or  mathematical. 

It  is  something  of  the  same  idea  which  Professor  Daab  has  in 
mind  in  saying :  "  Die  Religion  erhebt ;  die  Wissenschaft  berechnet. 
Die  Religion  wagt;  die  Wissenschaft  wagt."^  It  should  be  fairly 
clear  that  if  science  is  to  furnish  us  with  a  mechanical  technique 
of  control,  it  must  work  that  out  by  a  consideration  of  mathematical 
relationships,  by  calculating  and  weighing  the  data  with  which  it 
has  to  deal.  Especially  is  this  illustrated  in  the  mathematical  and 
physical  sciences.  On  the  other  hand,  the  way  to  the  organization 
of  a  social  control  is  by  taking  a  risk,  if  need  be,  and  living  through 
experience,  and  then  seeking  to  interpret  its  significance  in  terms 
of  cosmic  relationships. 

It  is  of  the  nature  of  science  to  calculate  as  accurately  as  pos- 
sible, to  endeavor  to  understand  causal  relationships  as  logically 
and  chronologically  as  possible,  and  then  to  organize  a  technique 
by  means  of  hypotheses  and  laws,  which  are  its  tools  for  controlling 
the  future.     But  the  tools  for  future  control  are  forged  out  of  the 

'  Hoffding,  The  Philosophy  of  Religion,  p.  12. 

»  Daab,  op.  cit.,  pp.  123  ff.  ^  jbid. 


40        THE  RELATION  BETWEEN  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE 

calculated  materials  of  the  past.  Religion,  on  the  other  hand,  is 
more  ready  to  venture  to  manipulate  tools  forged  out  of  untried 
materials.  True,  science  has  its  faith  and  makes  ventures  in 
formulating  hypotheses,  but  science  as  a  rule  does  not  attempt  to 
construct  machinery  except  with  materials  brought  from  the  past. 
Religion  is  constantly  constructing  new  machinery,  but  frequently 
goes  farther  and  creates  the  materials  that  it  puts  into  the  machin- 
ery. The  calculations  of  science  are  determined  by  the  past;  the 
adventures  of  reHgion  are  frequently  in  the  face  of  a  past  which 
seems  to  insure  failure. 

There  is  a  good  reason  for  the  venturesomeness  of  religion  in 
spite  of  the  calculations  of  science,  viz.,  that  in  religion  we  are 
dealing  with  relationships  that  are  social  as  against  the  mechanical 
in  science.  Science  handles  its  materials  as  things;  reHgion  regards 
both  subjects  and  objects  as  social.  It  is  a  characteristic  of  per- 
sonality that  future  behavior  is  only  partially  determinable  by 
past  behavior.  When  we  are  dealing  with  the  inorganic  world, 
and  when  we  are  dealing  with  reflexive  and  instinctive  behavior  in 
the  organic  world,  we  are  able  to  tabulate  our  results  pretty  accu- 
rately, so  that  we  can  predict  the  future  with  reference  to  the 
past.  But  this  method  breaks  down  when  we  are  deahng  with  the 
conscious  behavior  of  human  beings.  The  conative  process  of  con- 
sciousness enables  a  man  to  do  something  quite  different,  under 
the  same  stimulus,  from  what  he  had  done  previously.  The 
religious  attitude,  involving  as  it  does  a  relationship  conceived  in 
personal  terms,  dares  to  neglect  the  quantitative  element  and  to 
venture  upon  a  line  of  action,  urged  on  the  one  hand  by  the  felt 
needs  of  life  and  on  the  other  hand  by  its  conception  of  the  nature 
of  that  person  or  power  with  whom  it  is  socializing.  So  we  con- 
clude that  the  differentiation  into  qualitative  and  quantitative 
relationships  is  a  corollary  of  the  social  and  mechanical. 

5.  There  is  another  way  in  which  we  may  express  this  differ- 
entiation, viz.,  by  stating  that  the  religious  attitude  is  subjective 
and  the  scientific  attitude  is  objective.  For  the  simple  reason  that 
scientists  are  human,  it  is  impossible  to  deny  that  there  is  a  sub- 
jective element  in  the  attitude  of  many  scientists.  Indeed,  the 
very  selective  process  which  belongs  to  the  work  of  the  scientist  is 


THE  DIFFERENTIA  OF  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE  41 

in  a  measure  subjective.  On  the  other  hand,  I  do  not  wish  to 
deny  by  this  statement  the  vaHdity  of  the  rehgious  object.  The 
latter  belongs  to  the  metaphysical  implications  of  our  problem  and 
does  not  concern  us  at  this  point.  But  the  point  which  I  wish  to 
make  clear  is  that  science  tries  to  deal  at  first  hand  with  the  actual 
data  under  consideration,  and  in  a  thoroughly  objective  way. 
And  because  the  attitude  of  science  is  mechanical,  there  is  less  of 
the  affective  element  and  more  of  the  cognitive.  On  the  contrary 
the  religious  object  is  an  idealization,  and  consequently  the  felt 
needs  involve  the  introduction  of  an  affective  element. 

The  historic  struggle  between  science  and  religion  has  been  in 
reality  a  struggle  between  two  world-views.  Science  offers  to  us 
a  naturalistic  world-view,  presents  us  a  world  calculated  in  the 
formulas  of  determinism.  Religion  offers  to  us  an  idealistic  world- 
view,  presents  a  world  formed  out  of  images  created  in  response 
to  our  felt  needs.  In  either  case  there  is  teleology  to  this  extent, 
that  the  formulation  has  resulted  from  the  struggle  for  existence, 
and  that  both  are  instrumental  and  functional,  and  are  serviceable 
to  the  individual  and  to  society  in  the  expansion  of  the  life- 
processes. 

The  differentiation  between  religion  and  science,  stated  in  psy- 
chological terms,  is  a  matter  that  concerns  the  types  of  images 
employed.  The  primal  form  of  ideas  in  human  experience  is  the 
sense-idea  which  originates  as  a  direct  image  of  the  sense-object. 
Sensations  are  the  first  ways  in  which  consciousness  functions,  the 
simplest  form  of  cognition.  The  association  of  ideas  has  its  cor- 
relate in  brain  activity.  So  that  when  two  simple  brain-processes 
have  been  contemporaneous  or  one  immediately  succeeds  the  other, 
the  recurrence  of  the  first  tends  to  stimulate  the  recurrence  of  the 
second.  The  principle  of  association  affords  an  explanation  of  the 
reproduction  of  an  idea  or  image  in  memory.  The  chain  of  ideas 
by  which  an  occurrence  in  the  past  is  imaged  in  consciousness  is 
simply  the  operation  of  the  machinery  of  association  which  has 
its  physiological  correlate  in  neural  processes.  Sensations  are 
regarded  as  so  modifying  the  organism  that  copies  of  them  arise  in 
consciousness  even  when  the  original  stimulus  is  lacking.  No 
ideas  and  no  images  ever  occur  within  consciousness  which  have 


42        THE  RELATION  BETWEEN  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE 

not  sometime  had  an  external  stimulus.  Sometimes  returning 
images  are  simply  reproductions  of  the  original  sense-images;  at 
other  times  they  combine  elements  original  to  various  sense- 
experiences.  When  the  image  is  reproductive  of  the  past  in  some 
detail,  it  is  known  as  a  memory-image  or  recollection;  when  it  is 
a  picture  combining  elements  from  various  past  sense-hnages,  it  is 
given  the  name  of  imagination.  The  memory-image  is  a  recall  in 
as  much  concrete  detail  as  possible  of  the  original  sense-image, 
whereas  in  imagination  it  is  not  possible  to  trace  the  details  to  any 
one  original  sense-object.  Yet  the  function  of  imagination  is  just 
as  real  as  that  of  recollection. 

It  is  accepted  by  a  large  school  of  psychological  scholars  that 
there  can  be  no  thinking  apart  from  the  use  of  images.  The 
thought-processes  may  be  described  as  a  flux  and  flow  within  con- 
sciousness of  images  of  varying  types.  In  other  words,  images  are 
the  stuff  of  which  thoughts  are  constituted.  That  which  differen- 
tiates is  the  end  or  purpose  of  the  thinking  process.  It  is  the  desire 
of  science  to  scrutinize  and  observe  its  objects  as  closely  as  pos- 
sible with  the  aim  of  attaining  a  causal  explanation  and  ultimately 
a  mechanical  technique  with  which  kinetically  to  manipulate  the 
future.  The  scientist  aims  to  preclude  as  completely  as  possible 
the  subjective  element,  and  yet  at  times  when  he  is  formulating  a 
hypothesis  he  purposely  combines  imagery  in  the  trial-and-error 
method  of  seeking  a  solution  to  his  problem.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  effort  of  the  religious  man  to  sociahze  the  extra-human  environ- 
ment involves  a  continual  interplay  of  images.  Sense-experiences 
give  rise  to  images,  some  of  which  by  association  are  connected 
with  pleasurable  and  others  with  painful  experiences.  In  religion 
the  elements  of  sense-images  are  combined  in  accordance  with  felt 
needs,  the  process  of  combination  being  determined  in  considerable 
measure  by  the  social  mind.  The  ideas  of  a  devil  or  a  hell  of  tor- 
ment are  images,  the  elements  of  which  are  painful  sensations  in 
the  experiences  of  the  past.  The  conception  of  a  heavenly  city  or  a 
heavenly  Father  are  constructions  of  the  image-making  disposition 
of  consciousness,  the  elements  of  which  are  sense-images  which 
have  been  associated  with  experiences  of  pleasure  or  comfort. 
Psychologically  speaking,  the  imagery  involved  in  the  scientists' 


TEE  DIFFERENTIA  OF  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE  43 

hypothesis  is  of  a  piece  with  that  involved  in  the  faith  of  the 
religious  man. 

We  have  here  also  an  explanation  of  the  social  character  of 
Christian  doctrine  which  Professor  Mathews  has  pointed  out  so 
clearly.'  Theological  expression  hinges  upon  the  prevalent  social 
concepts  for  the  precise  reason  that  imagination  depends  upon 
sense-images  for  its  building  material.  An  image  of  a  tiger-god 
could  never  arise  where  people  had  no  sense-images  of  tigers.  A 
conception  of  a  god  of  thunder  implies  the  sense-image  of  thunder. 
So  also  the  conception  of  the  Christian  God  such  as  Anselm  presents 
in  terms  of  feudalism  was  the  necessary  product  of  an  age  when  the 
sense-images  of  the  people  were  formed  in  a  feudalistic  environment. 

This  fundamental  difference  between  religion  and  science  enters 
into  our  approach  to  actual  problems.  The  business  of  the  scientist, 
as  we  have  seen,  is  to  take  an  objective,  analytical  attitude  in 
obtaining  a  mechanical  technique.  If  he  admits  any  fantasy  into 
the  data  with  which  he  is  dealing,  his  work  will  be  jeopardized, 
and  he  is  liable  to  be  drawn  into  making  metaphysical  assumptions. 
The  only  legitimate  place  for  the  scientist  to  create  new  imagery 
out  of  sense-experiences  is  in  the  hypothesis-forming  activity.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  religious  attitude  involves  the  facing  of  problems 
with  which  scientific  technique  cannot  help  us.  The  question  of 
immortality,  e.g.,  is  not  one  about  which  we  can  make  observations 
in  the  scientific  sense  because  it  takes  us  into  the  realm  of  the 
imagination  where  the  technique  which  was  designed  for  the  world 
of  purely  sense-experiences  does  not  function.  Religion  interprets 
the  meaning  of  human  life  no  less  really  than  science,  but  it  does 
so  by  the  use  of  a  different  sort  of  technique.  Moreover,  the 
difference  in  technique  was  necessary  to  cope  with  the  different 
situations  arising  because  of  different  attitudes.  But  the  social 
attitude  and  its  imagery  are  as  truly  the  servants  of  life  as  the 
mechanical  attitude  and  its  imagery. 

'Shailer  Mathews,  "Theology  and  the  Social  Mind,"  in  the  Biblical  World, 
XL VI,  201-48. 


CHAPTER  IV 
THE  SEARCH  FOR  A  SCIENTIFIC  DEFINITION  OF  INSTINCT 

As  stated  in  the  conclusion  of  the  second  chapter,  the  proposi- 
tion of  this  thesis  is  that  the  religious  and  scientific  attitudes  have 
their  psycho-physical  genesis  in  the  innate  and  instinctive  behavior 
of  life.  As  a  basis  for  inquiry  into  this  problem  it  is  necessary  to 
obtain  a  scientific  definition  of  instinctive  behavior.  This  chapter 
is  devoted  to  that  attempt. 

The  attempt  to  find  the  genesis  of  religion  and  science  in  the 
instinctive  life  of  the  race  is  by  no  means  novel.  But  the  accounts 
which  have  been  given  have  been  disparate  because  of  the  changing 
content  of  the  concepts  employed.  There  has  been  no  unifying 
conception  as  to  what  is  meant  by  the  words  "instinct"  and 
"instinctive,"  so  that  the  relative  bearing  of  instinctive  behavior 
in  the  formation  of  the  religious  and  scientific  attitudes  has  not 
been  treated  with  any  degree  of  uniformity. 

It  will  be  of  service  to  us  in  the  deUneation  of  our  task  if  we  can 
come  to  an  understanding  of  the  sense  in  which  the  term  "instinct" 
is  used  by  contemporaneous  scientists.  Let  us  assume  that  the 
phenomena  of  instincts  are  physiological,  and  that  they  "represent 
structurally  prefonned  pathways  in  the  nervous  system."'  On 
this  basis  it  should  be  apparent  that  biology  is  the  science  which 
should  decide  for  us  what  content  we  shall  put  into  our  definition. 
The  use  which  psychology  should  make  of  the  term  is  fundamentally 
dependent  on  the  findings  of  biology.  Since  the  days  of  Charles 
Darwin  a  great  deal  of  valuable  experimentation  has  been  con- 
ducted in  this  field,  but  so  much  remains  to  be  done  that  it  will  be 
well  to  recognize  the  tentative  character  of  any  hypotheses  that 
may  be  set  forth. 

The  works  of  such  men  as  Jacques  Loeb,  Father  Wasmann, 
G.  A.  Reid,  C.  Lloyd  Morgan,  C.  S.  Sherrington,  R.  M.  Yerkes, 
and  H.  S.  Jennings  are  helping  toward  the  formation  of  a  correct 

'  Angell,  op.  ciL,  p.  339. 

44 


A  SCIENTIFIC  DEFINITION  OF  INSTINCT  45 

definition  from  a  biological  standpoint.  The  laboratory  investiga- 
tions of  scores  of  scholars  are  all  bringing  light  to  the  problem. 
Unfortunately  the  conclusions  of  some  men  are  discounted  in 
biological  circles  because  their  treatment  of  instincts  is  set  by  a 
preconceived  philosophical  theory.  Lloyd  Morgan,  whose  work* 
in  the  biological  treatment  of  instincts  is  reckoned  by  scientists  as 
the  most  authoritative,  criticizes  the  conclusions  of  Hans  Driesch 
as  dominated  by  his  idea  of  ''entelechy, "  those  of  Henri  Bergson 
as  shaped  by  his  "elan  vital,''  and  those  of  William  McDougall  as 
unduly  influenced  by  his  animistic  theory  of  a  "psychic  entity." 
All  such  ideas,  Uke  Plato's  Idea,  Berkeley's  Eternal  Spirit,  and 
Kant's  Transcendental  Ego,  are  concerned  with  a  source  or  agency 
underlying  the  process,  creating  it,  and  directing  its  course.  They 
are  metaphysical  questions  and  hinder  an  absolutely  objective 
treatment  of  the  subject.^  The  purely  scientific  attitude,  as  we 
have  seen,  is  analytical  and  logical,  but  not  interpretative.  Con- 
sequently metaphysical  considerations  must  not  enter  into  a  thor- 
oughly scientific  definition  of  instinct. 

Some  definitions  have  been  criticized  because  they  are  too 
simple.  Herbert  Spencer's  "compound  reflex  action"  is  too 
meager.^  Other  definitions  need  to  be  remodeled  because  of  the 
light  shed  from  subsequent  laboratory  experimentation.  Darwin, 
if  still  alive,  would  probably  see  that  it  was  a  doubtful  procedure 
to  apply  the  term  "instinctive"  to  the  emotions,  unless  in  a  second- 
ary sense.  It  is  somewhat  surprising  to  find  Driesch  including  in 
his  definition  of  instinct  as  a  complicated  reaction  the  phrase 
"that  is  perfect  the  very  first  time, "^  which  would  a  priori  spell 
the  impossibility  of  modifiabihty  and  of  progress. 

Still  another  group  of  definitions  is  criticized  because  they 
tend  to  be  over-psychological,  to  the  neglect  of  the  data  which  are 
furnished  by  biology.  Wilham  James  defined  instinct  as  "the 
faculty  of  acting  in  such  a  way  as  to  produce  certain  ends,  without 

^  Habit  and  Instinct,  i8g6;  Animal  Behavior,  igoo;  Instinct  and  Experience, 
1912;  "Instinct,"  in  the  Encyclopaedia  Britannica  (nth  ed.),  XIV,  648  ff. 

*  Lloyd  Morgan,  Instinct  and  Experience,  pp.  viii,  137. 
3  Herbert  Spencer,  Principles  of  Psychology,  1,  427. 

*  Hans  Driesch,  The  Science  and  Philosophy  of  the  Organism  (1908  volume),  p.  no. 


46        THE  RELATION  BETWEEN  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE 

foresight  of  the  ends,  and  without  previous  education  in  the  per- 
formance. "^  Parmelee  trenchantly  criticized  this  definition  be- 
cause (i)  it  is  so  vague  that  it  "might  cover  a  tropism  or  a  simple 
reflex  action,"  (2)  ''it  makes  instinct  necessarily  purposeful  in 
its  character,"  which  is  very  objectionable,  and  (3)  it  is  not 
explicit  in  showing  the  hereditary  character  of  instinct.^  The 
definition  of  William  McDougall  is  a  good  example  of  an  over- 
emphasis of  the  psychic  element.  His  conclusion  is  that  we  "may 
define  an  instinct  as  an  inherited  or  innate  psycho-physical  disposi- 
tion which  determines  its  possessor  to  perceive,  and  to  pay  attention 
to,  objects  of  a  certain  class,  to  experience  an  emotional  excitement 
of  a  particular  quality  upon  perceiving  such  an  object,  and  to  act 
in  regard  to  it  in  a  particular  manner,  or,  at  least,  to  experience  an 
impulse  to  such  action.  "-^  Parmelee  again  has  the  credit  of  pointing 
out  the  weakness  in  this  definition:  (i)  He  regards  instinct  as 
/'^^'c/^o-physical,  and  his  definition  includes  cognitive,  affective, 
and  conative  elements,  but  biological  investigation  has  shown 
that  instinctive  action  is  sometimes  devoid  of  any  psychical  element. 
(2)  The  terms  "to  perceive"  and  "to  pay  attention"  involve  a 
consciousness  which  is  not  necessarily  present.  (3)  The  "emo- 
tional excitement"  which  McDougall  posits  is  not  the  concom- 
tant  of  all  instincts.'' 

Biological  investigation  has  reached  certain  conclusions  as  to 
the  characteristics  of  instinctive  behavior  which  lead  to  definiteness : 

I .  It  is  a  congenital  mode  of  behavior  in  differentiation  from  an 
acquired  mode  which  involves  intelligence.  Driesch  thinks  that 
it  is  "perfect  the  very  first  time."^  Lloyd  Morgan  would  modify 
that  by  saying  that  it  is  "serviceable  on  the  occasion  of  its  first 
appearance."^  But  that  it  is  congenital,  biologists  agree.  It  is 
characteristic  of  the  species,  and  hence  it  is  hereditary  and  structural. 
It  requires  no  foresight  before  the  behavior  takes  place,  and  hence 
is  independent  of  prior  experience. 

'  William  James,  The  Principles  of  Psychology,  I,  383. 

^  Maurice  Parmelee,  The  Science  of  Human  Behavior,  pp.  223,  224. 

3  McDougall,  Social  Psychology,  p.  29. 

*  Parmelee,  ibid.,  pp.  218-21.  ^  Driesch,  op.  clL,  II,  no. 

•*  Lloyd  Morgan,  Instinct  and  Experience,  p.  22. 


A  SCIENTIFIC  DEFINITION  OF  INSTINCT  47 

2.  It  is  characteristically  performed  by  all  the  members  of  the 
group,  and  tends  toward  the  well-being  of  the  group  or  of  the 
individual  components  of  the  group. 

3.  Nevertheless  it  is  capable  of  adaptability  and  modification 
under  the  guide  of  experience,  in  the  same  way  that  the  structures 
themselves  have  the  power  of  variabihty  and  adaptability.  It  is 
capable  of  stimulation  and  of  obstruction  whereby  reinforcement 
or  inhibition  may  take  place,  a  fact  of  importance  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  various  attitudes. 

4.  It  is  relatively  complex.  In  the  words  of  Lloyd  Morgan: 
"Such  behavior  is  a  more  or  less  complex  organic  or  biological 
response  to  a  more  or  less  complex  group  of  stimuli  of  external  and 
internal  origin,  and  it  is,  as  such,  wholly  dependent  on  how  the 
organism  and  especially  the  nervous  system  and  brain-centres 
have  been  built  through  heredity  under  the  racial  preparation 
which  we  call  biological  evolution."' 

As  to  the  matter  of  the  neurosis  of  instinctive  behavior,  much 
work  has  been  done,  but  the  conclusions  do  not  lay  claim  to  finality. 
The  fact  that  instincts  are  congenital  dispositions  to  relatively 
definite  types  of  behavior  puts  them  on  the  same  plane  with  trop- 
isms  and  reflexes.  This  has  led  Loeb  to  an  identification  of  the 
three.  We  have  noted  the  definition  of  Herbert  Spencer  in  which 
he  makes  instincts  compound  reflex  actions.  Some  writers,  such 
as  Romanes,  have  found  the  differentia  by  positing  a  conscious 
element  in  instinctive  behavior  which  is  absent  from  reflex  action.^ 
The  position  which  was  taken  by  Spencer  has  been  adopted  by 
Lloyd  Morgan,^  Parmelee,''  and  Hobhouse,^  viz.,  that  instincts 
are  complexes  or  co-ordinates  of  reflexes.  Lloyd  Morgan  makes 
a  further  differentiation  in  claiming  that  instinctive  action  would 
involve  the  organism  as  a  whole,  whereas  reflex  action  would  not. 

Experiments  in  regard  to  the  neural  bases  of  reflexes,  instincts, 
etc.,  are  leading  biologists  to  the  conclusion  that  the  lines  of 
demarcation  are  by  no  means  sharp,  and  the  distinctions  may  be  a 

'Op.  cit.,  p.  5.  ^  G.  J.  Romanes,  Animal  Intelligence,  pp.  3,  17. 

3  Lloyd  Morgan,  Instinct  and  Experience,  chap.  iii. 

*  M.  Parmelee,  op.  cit.,  p.  203. 

s  L.  T.  Hobhouse,  Mind  in  Evolution,  p.  53. 


48        THE  RELATION  BETWEEN  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE 

matter  of  relative  complexity.     At  the  same  time  they  are  finding 

neural  explanations  for  these  distinctions.     The  simple  reflex  is  a 

reaction  due  to  the  environmental  stimulus  of  some  afferent  nerve 

which  conducts  the  excitement  through  the  spinal  cord  to  the 

efferent  nerves,  which  in  turn  connect  with  the  muscles  or  glands 

where  the  action  is  effected.     The  reflex  arc  or  path  through  which 

the  stimulus  is  conducted  from  the  sensory  neurone  to  the  motor 

neurone  does  not  pass  through  the  cerebrum.     On  the  other  hand, 

intelligent  or  voluntary  behavior  for  the  obtaining  of  precision 

necessitates  the  passing  of  the  stimulus  over  pathways  which  lead 

to  the  cerebral  centers.     The  property  of  consciousness  has  been 

located  in  the  cerebral  cortex,  and  hence  behavior  which  involves 

experience  and  which  is  conative  is  due,  on  its  neural  side,  to  the 

functional  activity  of  the  cortical  brain  centers.     Between  these 

two  types  of  behavior  is  the  instinctive,  which  is  more  complex 

than  reflexes  and  less  so  than  intelligence.     How  is  that  to  be 

explained  physiologically  ?    On  the  one  hand,  there  is  a  practical 

agreement  that  instincts  are  co-ordinated  reflexes.     On  the  other 

hand,  there  is  the  problem  of  their  relation  to  intelligence.     On 

this  latter  point  Lloyd  Morgan  and  C.  S.  Sherrington  have  the 

credit  of  putting  forth  an  attractive  hypothesis.     Morgan  states 

it  as  follows : 

Intelligent  guidance  is  the  function  of  the  cerebral  cortex  with  its  dis- 
tinguishing property  of  consciousness;  the  co-ordination  involved  in  instinctive 
behavior,  and  in  the  distribution  of  physiological  forces  to  the  viscera  and 
vascular  systems,  is  the  primary  function  of  the  lower  brain-centres;  in  instinct- 
ive behavior  as  such,  consciousness  correlated  with  processes  in  the  cerebral 
cortex  is,  so  to  speak,  a  mere  spectator  of  organic  and  biological  occurrences 
at  present  beyond  its  control;  but,  as  spectator,  it  receives  information  of 
these  occurrences  through  the  nerve-channels  of  connexion  between  the 
lower  and  the  higher  parts  of  the  brain.' 

This  hypothesis,  whereby  he  locates  the  co-ordinations  involved  in 
instinctive  behavior  in  the  subcortical  brain  centers,  in  the  case  of 
the  higher  vertebrates,  is  substantiated  by  experiments  conducted 
by  many  biologists  on  decerebrate  animals,  i.e.,  animals  which  have 
had  the  cerebral  hemispheres  and  cortex  destroyed,  but  have  the 
subcortical  region  and  spinal  cord  intact.    And  so  far  as  the  investi- 

'  Lloyd  Morgan,  Instinct  and  Experience,  pp.  7,  8. 


A  SCIENTIFIC  DEFINITION  OF  INSTINCT  49 

gations  have  been  carried  out,  they  have  led  to  the  conclusion  that 
such  animals  are  capable  of  behavior  which,  in  the  biological  usage 
of  the  term,  may  be  called  instinctive. 

The  importance  of  locating  the  neural  center  of  instinctive 
behavior  is  apparent.  If  Morgan  is  correct,  then  we  must  con- 
clude that  there  is  a  considerable  amount  of  instinctive  behavior 
from  which  psychical  elements  are  lacking.  It  does  not  deny, 
however,  that  when  the  cerebral  cortex  is  present  it  functions 
in  the  assimilation  of  instinctive  experience,  thus  conserving  a 
"changing  continuum  of  experience."^  So  that  the  control  of 
instinctive  behavior  by  the  cerebral  centers  must  be  an  "extension 
of  the  same  processes  as  are  operative  in  simultaneous  and  succes- 
sive combinations  of  reflexes."^ 

The  relative  character  of  reflex,  instinctive,  and  intelligent 
behavior  leads  some  scientists  to  urge  that  it  is  more  advisable  to 
use  tlie  adjectival  rather  than  the  substantive  form  of  the  word. 
It  is  better  to  speak  of  instinctive  behavior  or  tendencies  or  dis- 
positions than  of  instincts.  There  are  no  instincts  per  se.  The 
word  should  be  employed  in  a  descriptive  sense  rather  than  as 
denoting  an  entity.  The  use  of  the  word  in  this  quahfying  sense 
has  the  advantage  that  certain  behavior  may  be  described  as 
instinctive,  in  a  primary  and  direct  or  in  a  secondary  and  indirect 
sense,  whereas  the  use  of  the  word  "instinct"  would  involve  a 
restriction  to  a  limited  type  of  activity. 

It  is  surely  more  scientific  to  use  the  terminology  in  this  sense 
than  to  try  to  make  a  catalogue  of  instincts,  especially  when  a 
comparative  study  of  the  lists  prepared  reveals  the  fact  that 
scarcely  any  two  of  them  correspond.  There  can  be  no  doubt 
that  much  of  the  difference  is  due  to  the  fact  that  there  has  been 
no  uniform  sense  in  which  the  word  has  been  employed.  When 
writers  like  Thomas^  and  Ames''  refer  to  hunger  and  sex  as  two 
primal  instincts,  they  are  not  using  the  word  in  its  biological 
connotation,  but  with  reference  to  the  great  life-interests,  viz., 

^Op.  cit.,p.  81. 

^  C.  S.  Sherrington,  Integrative  Action  of  the  Nervous  System,  p.  390. 

3  W.  I.  Thomas,  Sex  and  Society,  pp.  97-99,  1 18-19. 

<  E.  S.  Ames,  op.  cit.,  p.  34. 


50        THE  RELATION  BETWEEN  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE 

the  struggle  for  food  and  rivalry  for  mates  in  the  interests  of 
reproduction.  Doubtless  it  was  out  of  the  needs  created  by  these 
interests  that  much  instinctive  behavior  has  resulted.  The 
opposite  tendency  is  shown  in  William  James,  who  held  that  the 
number  of  human  instincts  is  much  larger  than  the  number  of 
animal  instincts.  Thorndike  has  drawn  up  a  list'  of  all  that  James 
would  include  under  instinct,  and  the  list  covers  three  pages, 
including  what  Thorndike  would  break  up  into  reflexes,  instincts, 
and  inborn  capacities,  as  well  as  other  types  of  behavior  of  a  more 
complex  character. 

Between  these  two  examples  there  are  lists  that  vary  in  length 
in  accordance  with  the  content  which  the  author  places  in  the  word 
"instinct."  Angell,  e.g.,  includes  fear,  anger,  shyness,  curiosity, 
affection,  sexual  love,  jealousy  and  envy,  rivalry,  sociabihty, 
sympathy,  modesty  (?),  play,  imitation,  constructiveness,  secre- 
tiveness,  and  acquisitiveness.^  McDougall  has  seven  primary 
instincts  and  four  others  which  are  more  complex.  The  first  list 
includes  flight,  repulsion,  curiosity,  pugnacity,  self-abasement  and 
self-assertion,  and  the  parental  instinct;  the  supplementary  list 
includes  the  instincts  of  reproduction,  gregariousness,  acquisition, 
and  construction.^  Kirkpatrick  prefers  to  group  the  instincts  as 
the  individualistic  or  self-preservative,  the  parental,  the  social, 
the  adaptive,  the  regulative  (under  which  he  includes  the  moral 
and  the  religious  tendencies),  and  resultant  or  miscellaneous 
instincts."*  Marshall  makes  a  threefold  classification  of  the  indi- 
vidualistic instincts,  those  relating  to  the  persistence  of  the  species 
to  which  the  individual  belongs,  and  those  relating  to  the  persistence 
of  social  groups.^     He  also  refers  to  a  group  of  regulative  instincts. 

Such  a  wide  variety  in  the  treatment  of  the  subject  is  evidence 
of  the  complexity  of  ideas  about  the  subject  under  treatment. 
There  is  a  further  difficulty  in  the  fact  that  scholars  have  not 
always  been  faithful  to  their  own  definitions.  Parmelee  has 
criticized  Angell's  list,  e.g.,  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  author's 

»E.  L.  Thorndike,  The  Original  Nature  of  Man,  pp.  17-20. 
=  Angell,  op.  cit.,  p.  349.  '  McDougall,  op.  cit.,  chap.  iii. 

4  Edwin  A.  Kirkpatrick,  Fundamentals  of  Child  Study,  pp.  51-63. 
s  H.  R.  Marshall,  Instinct  and  Reason,  pp.  103-59. 


A  SCIENTIFIC  DEFINITION  OF  INSTINCT  51 

own  definition  that  instincts  "represent  structurally  preformed 
pathways  in  the  nervous  system,  and  stand  functionally  for  effective 
inherited  co-ordinations  made  in  response  to  environmental  de- 
mands.'"  In  the  light  of  this  definition  Parmelee  asserts  that 
"it  is  strange  that  he  should  include  as  instincts  such  general 
tendencies  as  imitation  and  play,  which  do  not  represent  any 
specific  pathways  or  co-ordinations  in  the  nervous  system,  but 
which  manifest  themselves  through  many  reflexes  and  combinations 
of  reflexes.  "^  A  grouping  of  the  instincts,  such  as  in  the  classifica- 
tion of  Kirkpatrick,  has  its  advantages,  and  the  interest  of  this 
author  is,  of  course,  pedagogical.  Marshall's  analysis  is  in  the 
interest  of  proving  the  presence  of  a  specific  religious  instinct,  a 
matter  for  later  consideration. 

Let  us  observe  again  that  the  definition  underlying  the  dis- 
cussion is  largely  determinative  of  what  the  scholar  will  include  in 
his  list  of  instincts.  Lloyd  Morgan's  suggestions  for  a  scientific 
approach  seem  to  me  to  be  entirely  justifiable.     He  says: 

I  suggest  that,  for  the  biologist  and  the  psychologist,  a  criterion — not  the 
only  criterion,  but  a  criterion  of  instinctive  behavior — is  that  it  is  serviceable 
on  the  first  occasion.  But  the  biologist  for  the  purposes  of  his  interpretation 
of  animal  life  will  ask:  Serviceable  to  what  end?  First  of  all,  serviceable  as 
affording  the  congenital  foundations  for  an  improved  superstructure  of  behavior. 
That  is  one  one  way  in  which  instinctive  behavior  is  serviceable — the  way 
which  is  of  special  interest  to  the  psychologist.  From  the  more  distinctly 
biological  point  of  view,  instinctive  behavior  is  broadly  and  generally  serviceable 
for  survival  to  which  sundry  bodily  activities  contribute.  In  further  detail, 
instinctive  behavior  is  serviceable  for  avoiding  danger,  by  shrinking,  quiescence 
or  flight;  serviceable  for  warding  off  the  attacks  of  enemies;  serviceable  for 
obtaining  food,  capturing  prey  and  so  forth;  serviceable  for  winning  and 
securing  a  mate,  for  protecting  and  rearing  offspring;  in  social  animals,  service- 
able for  co-operating  with  others,  and  so  behaving  that  not  only  the  individual 
but  the  social  group  shall  survive.  But  it  will  be  said,  these  are  the  very  ends 
for  the  attainment  of  which  intelligence  is  serviceable.  Unquestionably  it  is 
so.  It  is  just  because  the  many  and  varied  modes  of  instinctive  behavior 
are  serviceable  for  the  attainment  of  the  same  ends  for  which  intelligence  is 
serviceable,  that  their  consideration  is  essential  to  the  right  history  of  ex- 
perience. Instinctive  behavior,  which  has  its  roots  in  organic  evolution, 
affords  the  rude  outline  sketch  of  that  far  less  imperfect  and  far  more  fully 
serviceable  behavior,  the  finishing  touches  of  which  are  supplied  by  practice 

'  Angell,  op.  cit.,  p.  339.  *  Parmelee,  op.  ciL,  pp.  243,  244. 


52        THE  RELATION  BETWEEN  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE 

under  the  guidance  of  intelligence.  The  net  result  (what  is  for  popular  speech 
the  perfected  instinct)  is  a  joint  product  of  instinct  and  intelligence,  in  which 
the  co-operating  factors  are  inseparable,  but  none  the  less  genetically  dis- 
tinguishable.' 

From  the  biological  point  of  view,  then,  we  may  speak  of  an 
instinct  as  a  congenital  co-ordination  of  reflexes,  neurally  integrated 
and  effecting  an  organic  response  characteristic  of  and  serviceable  to 
the  species  and  in  some  manner^  capable  of  subsequent  modification. 
The  character  of  the  response  depends  on  the  character  of  the 
stimulus  and  the  presence  or  absence  of  any  obstruction  to  its 
normal  expression. 

As  we  move  into  the  field  of  psychology,  we  must  proceed  to 
the  tasks  set  before  us  in  that  field  with  the  realization  that  we  are 
dependent  on  the  biologist  for  the  scientific  understanding  of 
instinctive  tendencies  and  behavior.  In  the  matter  of  instinct  we 
may  say  that  the  psychological  task  is  interpretative  rather  than 
definitive.  Functional  psychology  is  behavioristic  and  is  not  con- 
cerned with  "states  of  consciousness, "  as  were  the  associationalists, 
but  with  behavior,  with  what  is  done.  The  act  is  the  starting-place, 
and  action  is  determined  by  instinctive  behavior  directed  to  the 
satisfaction  of  some  felt  need.  Sometimes  one  instinctive  tendency 
functions  in  inhibition  of  another;  sometimes  they  reinforce  one 
another.  Social  psychology  has  helped  us  to  an  understanding  of 
the  rise  of  consciousness  as  due  to  the  necessity  of  a  selective  process 
which  will  choose  the  impulse  to  be  set  free  and  the  forms  which 
it  will  utilize  for  the  satisfaction  of  the  need.  In  that  way  expe- 
rience has  its  genesis  in  instinctive  behavior,  which  is  regarded 
as  including  all  the  primal  and  congenital  types  of  behavior  which 
in  any  manner  are  synthesized  in  experience.  And  here  we  are  in 
the  field  of  intelligent  behavior,  the  physiological  correlate  of 
which  is  to  be  seen  in  neural  processes  which  involve  the  cerebral 
cortex. 

'  Morgan,  Instinct  and  Experience,  pp.  25,  26. 

^  The  biological  debate  as  to  the  manner  in  which  modifications  take  place  in 
the  evolutionary  process  does  not  necessarily  affect  our  problem.  Darwinianism, 
Lamarkianism,  the  mutation  theory  of  de  Vries,  and  the  germ-plasm  theory  of 
Weissmann  are  all  attempts  to  account  for  the  unanimously  recognized  phenomena 
of  modification  and  variation. 


A  SCIENTIFIC  DEFINITION  OF  INSTINCT  53 

We  need  to  remind  ourselves,  however,  that  there  is  another 
tj'pe  of  activity  which  is  so  characteristic  of  the  species  or  race  that 
we  may  deem  it  to  be  innate,  and  which  nevertheless  is  too  complex 
to  be  classified  as  instinctive.  Some  psychologists,  as  we  have 
seen,  make  their  treatment  of  instinct  so  broad  that  all  these 
innate  tendencies,  such  as  the  tendencies  to  imitate,  to  sympathize, 
to  play,  to  respond  to  suggestions,  to  experience  emotions,  are 
included  under  instincts.  Thorndike  and  others  have  done 
valuable  work  in  pointing  out  the  necessity  of  a  differentiation. 
For  certain  psychological  purposes,  such  as  the  task  before  us, 
these  innate  tendencies  afford  data  which  may  be  treated  on  the 
same  plane  with  instinctive  behavior,  because  instinctive  tenden- 
cies are  also  innate.  I  need  only  refer  to  the  fourth  chapter  of 
McDougali's  Social  Psychology  for  a  valuable  treatment  of  this 
subject.  It  would  be  difficult  to  give  a  physiological  account  of  all 
innate  tendencies.  Each  would  require  individual  treatment.  More- 
over, the  behavior  lacks  that  definiteness  which  characterizes  the 
instinctive.  "The  tendency  is  to  an  extremely  indefinite  response 
or  set  of  responses  to  a  very  complex  situation,"'  and  the  final 
form  in  which  the  tendency  expresses  itself  is  more  largely  deter- 
mined by  experience  and  intelligence.  Innate  tendencies  corre- 
spond to  instinctive  behavior  in  being  congenital  responses,  but 
differ  in  that  they  depend  upon  having  connections  in  the  cortical 
regions. 

Another  problem  which  commands  attention  is  that  which 
concerns  the  instinctive  basis  of  the  emotions  and  sentiments. 
There  are  some  instinctive  reactions  which  occur  so  quickly  in 
response  to  their  stimuH  that  they  are  almost  entirely  reflex,  and 
emotional  quality  is  almost  entirely  lacking.  On  the  other  hand, 
there  may  be  some  cases  where  the  instinctive  reaction  and  its 
emotional  correlate  seem  to  be  simultaneous.  In  the  majority  of 
cases  the  action  precedes  the  emotion,  as  has  been  indicated  in  the 
James-Lange  theory.  The  instinctive  response  is  accompanied 
by  a  characteristic  quality  of  emotional  tone.  Now  this  emotional 
experience  has  its  neurosis  corresponding  to  the  neurosis  of  the 
instinctive  experience.     It  has  already  been  indicated  that  under 

'Thorndike,  op.  cit.,  p.  5. 


54        THE  RELATION  BETWEEN  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE 

the  proper  environmental  stimuli  there  issue  from  the  subcortical 
region  of  the  brain  characteristic  types  of  instinctive  behavior 
which  include  muscular  and  glandular  reactions.  It  is  to  be 
observed  further  that  some  of  the  motor  responses  are  themselves 
described  as  emotional  expressions.  But  in  addition  there  take 
place  certain  visceral  disturbances,  such  as  alterations  in  the 
heart-beat,  in  the  respiratory  rhythm,  and  in  the  digestive  and 
glandular  functions,  changes  which  influence  the  general  coen- 
esthesia;  and  these  disturbances  also  are  efferent  reactions  to 
the  stimuli  in  the  same  sense  as  the  motor  reactions.  The  physical 
changes  resultant  from  these  two  types  of  instinctive  reaction 
give  rise  to  afferent  impulses  which  come  into  the  central  nervous 
system  with  the  result  that  the  experience  of  the  situation  is 
qualified  as  the  impulse  reaches  the  cerebral  cortex.  And  this 
qualification  is  what  gives  the  instinctive  experience  its  emotional 
tone.  Lloyd  Morgan  says:  *'I  regard  it  as  probable  that,  in  its 
primary  genesis,  the  emotional  tone  is  in  large  measure  correlated 
with  cortical  disturbances  due  to  stimulation  which  is  visceral 
and  coenesthetic  in  origin."'  After  the  emotional  tone  has  been 
experienced  and  has  been  integrated,  the  subject  is  able  to  recall 
the  affective  meaning  without  going  through  the  whole  neurosis 
as  first  experienced.  Instinctive  tendencies  may  receive  a  reinforce- 
ment or  an  obstruction  by  the  emotion  which  is  called  forth,  and 
this  gives  rise  to  the  regulative  processes  which  characterize 
morality  and  religion.  The  position  which  Mr.  Shand  takes  is 
practically  the  same  as  that  of  Professor  Lloyd  Morgan.  He 
explains^  the  organic  sensations  which  characterize  the  intense 
emotions  by  the  alteration  of  the  function  of  different  organs, 
causing  either  a  depression  or  a  stimulation  of  the  normal  functions. 
He  points  out  further-*  that  the  primary  emotions  have  the  ability 
to  organize  into  their  system  all  instincts  that  are  serviceable  to 
their  ends,  and  are  not  confined  each  to  one  characteristic  instinct. 
In  complexity  the  sentiments  mark  a  stage  more  advanced 
than  the  emotions.    They  may  be  defined  as  a  synthesis  of  emotional 

'  Morgan,  Instinci  and  Experience,  p.  113. 

-  A.  F.  Shand,  The  Foundations  of  Characler,  pp.  193,  194. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  192. 


A  SCIENTIFIC  DEFINITION  OF  INSTINCT  55 

qualities  which  are  organized  about  the  ideas  concerning  objects, 
relationships,  or  values.  A  sentiment  is  capable  of  much  greater 
complexity  than  an  instinct  or  an  emotion,  as  we  may  see  in  the 
moral,  aesthetic,  and  religious  sentiments.  Yet  its  genesis  is 
plainly  traceable  to  the  combination  of  emotions,  the  physiological 
connections  of  which  with  instinctive  reactions  have  been  shown. 
References  may  be  made  to  the  works  of  McDougall,^  Shand,"* 
and  Ribot^  for  psychological  discussions  of  the  origin  and  func- 
tions of  the  sentiments.  The  significance  for  our  task  consists  in 
the  instinctive  origin  of  the  sentiments,  and  in  the  evolution  of  the 
religious  and  scientific  attitudes  which  are  characterized  by  the 
presence  of  certain  specific  sentiments. 

'  McDougall,  Social  Psychology. 

'  Shand,  The  Foundations  of  Character. 

J  Ribot,  The  Psychology  of  the  Emotions. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  THEORY  OF  SPECIFIC  RELIGIOUS  AND   SCIENTIFIC 

INSTINCTS 

Having  secured  a  working  definition  of  instinct,  the  next  part 
of  the  task  is  to  endeavor  to  discover  the  bearing  of  that  upon  the 
problem  of  the  relation  of  religion  and  science,  especially  in  respect 
to  their  genesis  in  the  instinctive  life.  The  fifth  chapter  proposes 
to  examine  the  hypotheses  put  forth  by  various  writers  that  there 
are  specific  religious  and  scientific  instincts,  on  the  basis,  of  course, 
of  the  definition  proposed  in  the  previous  chapter. 

The  next  part  of  our  task  is  to  inquire  into  the  instinctive  origin 
of  religion  and  science  in  the  light  of  what  biology  has  taught  us 
as  to  the  nature  of  the  instincts,  innate  tendencies,  emotions,  and 
sentiments.  The  purpose  of  the  discussion  concerning  the  nature 
of  instinct  was  to  attain  that  clarity  that  is  necessary  to  avoid  the 
danger  which  Mr.  McDougall  so  rightly  deprecates,  viz.,  of  using 
the  words  "instinct"  and  "instinctive"  in  such  a  loose  sense  as 
almost  to  spoil  them  for  scientific  purposes.''  Alongside  of  that 
danger  is  the  other,  which  we  have  already  noted,  of  using  the 
terms  without  a  proper  conception  of  their  significance  in  biological 
thought. 

Some  scholars,  having  first  concluded  that  religion  and  science 
were  of  instinctive  origin  in  the  race,  have  jumped  to  the  inference 
that  there  must  be  correspondingly  specific  instincts.  The  question 
has  been  discussed  by  those  interested  in  accounting  for  the  origin 
of  religion  more  frequently  than  in  regard  to  the  beginnings  of 
science.  The  Deists,  who  appeared  in  England  in  the  seventeenth 
and  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  centuries,  in  their  efforts  to 
establish  the  certainty  and  sufficiency  of  natural  religion  as  against 
revelatory   religion,   declared  religion  to   be  a  human  instinct.' 

'McDougall,  op.  cit.,  p.  21. 
.     *Lord  Herbert  of  Cherbury  (1583-1648)  taught  that  there  were  certain  mental 
faculties,  of  which  the  fundamental  group  were  the  natural  instincts  which  are  innate 
and  of  divine  origin. 

56 


THEORY  OF  RELIGIOUS  AND  SCIENTIFIC  INSTINCTS      57 

Reimarus,  the  German  rationalist  who  was  contemporaneous  with 
the  Deists,  upheld  the  same  position  in  the  Wolfenbiitiel  Fragments. 
Religion  he  declared  to  be  an  instinct,  therefore  requiring  no  revela- 
tion. Boutroux,  in  stating  the  position  of  Auguste  Comte,  repre- 
sents him  as  holding  that  "the  heart  possesses  an  instinct,  called 
the  religious  instinct,  in  virtue  of  which  the  individual  is  able  to 
live  with  the  dead,  and  to  assimilate  their  excellences."' 

So  eminent  a  scientist  as  Romanes  wrote  of  "the  religious 
instincts  of  the  human  race,"  with  the  comment: 

Elsewherein  the  animal  kingdom  we  never  meet  with  such  a  thing  as  an 
instinct  pointing  aimlessly,  and  therefore  the  fact  of  man  being,  as  it  is  said, 
"a  religious  animal" — i.e.,  presenting  a  class  of  feelings  of  a  peculiar  nature 
directed  to  particular  ends,  and  most  akin  to,  if  not  identical  with,  true  instinct 
— is  so  far,  in  my  opinion,  a  legitimate  argument  in  favor  of  the  reality  of 
some  object  toward  which  the  religious  side  of  this  animal's  nature  is  directed.^ 

The  position  of  Max  Miiller,  one  of  the  great  pioneers  in  the 
field  of  the  history  of  religions,  is  in  intent  the  same  as  that  of  the 
writers  who  posit  a  definite  religious  instinct,  although  he  uses 
the  word  "faculty"  in  lieu  of  the  word  "instinct."  He  states  his 
conviction  that  "as  there  is  a  faculty  of  speech,  independent  of  all 
the  historical  forms  of  language,  there  is  a  faculty  of  faith  in  man, 
independent  of  all  historical  religions."  Miiller  explains  the  func- 
tion of  this  faculty  of  religion  as  enabhng  man  "to  apprehend  the 
Infinite  under  different  names,  and  under  varying  disguises."  Under 
the  historical  expressions  of  religion  he  thinks  that  he  detects  "a 
groaning  of  the  spirit,  a  struggle  to  conceive  the  inconceivable,  to 
utter  the  unutterable,  a  longing  after  the  Infinite,  a  love  of  God."'^ 
Although  the  author  uses  the  word  "faculty,"  it  will  be  seen  that 
he  uses  it  in  the  same  sense  as  he  does  when  referring  to  the  power 
of  speech,  which  of  course  can  only  be  conceived  with  a  biological 
reference.  Professor  Tiele,  who  follows  Max  Miiller  in  his  inter- 
pretation of  the  origin  of  rehgion,  has  interpreted  him  as  I  have 
done.     Tiele,  of  course,  interprets  "the  Infinite"  in  the  Hegehan 

'  Emile  Boutroux,  Science  and  Religion  in  Contemporary  Philosophies  (English 
translation  by  J.  Nield),  p.  66. 

2  Romanes,  Thoughts  on  Religion,  essay  on  "The  Influence  of  Science  on  Religion," 
p.  86. 

3  F.  Ma.x  Miiller,  Inlroduclion  to  the  Science  of  Religion,  pp.  13,  14. 


58        THE  RELATION  BETWEEN  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE 

fashion  as  being  within  rather  than  without.  So  for  him  "the 
origin  of  rehgion  consists  in  the  fact  that  man  has  the  Infinite  within 
him,  even  before  he  himself  is  conscious  of  it,  and  whether  he 
recognizes  it  or  not."  He  then  proceeds  to  say  that  ''Whatever 
name  we  give  it — instinct,  or  an  innate,  original,  and  unconscious 
form  of  thought,  or  form  of  conception — it  is  the  specifically  human 
element  in  man,  the  idea  which  dominates  him."^ 

Jastrow  is  another  author  who  gives  expression  to  this  theory. 
"The  origin  of  religion,"  according  to  him,  "so  far  as  historical 
study  can  solve  the  problem,  is  to  be  sought  in  the  bringing  into 
play  of  man's  power  to  obtain  a  perception  of  the  Infinite  through 
the  impression  which  the  multitudinous  phenomena  of  the  universe 

as  a  whole  makes  upon  him He  contemplates  with  a  certain 

awe  both  himself  and  the  world  outside  of  himself,  and  the  religious 
instinct  thus  stirred  up  leads  him  to  realize  his  insignificance,"  etc. 
Thus  by  this  writer  the  "perception  of  the  Infinite"  is  used  syn- 
onymously for  "the  religious  instinct."  Indeed,  in  one  passage  he 
expressly  states  that  "the  faint  perception  of  the  Infinite  .... 
strikes  a  responsive  chord  in  what,  for  want  of  a  better  name,  we 
may  call  man's  religious  instinct."^  The  point  of  view  which  finds 
expression  in  Brinton  seems  to  be  similar.  He  suggests  a  "uni- 
versal postulate"  which  is  the  "psychic  origin  of  all  reHgious 
thought,"  and  "a  reUgiosity  in  man  as  a  part  of  his  psychic  being," 
which  is  surely  not  far  removed  from  the  theory  of  a  religious 
instinct.^ 

The  outstanding  example  of  an  elaborate  argument  to  estab- 
lish the  theory  of  a  religious  instinct  is  the  attempt  of  Marshall.'' 
Marshall's  argument  is  as  follows:  (i)  The  universahty  of  rehgious 
expression  argues  for  its  instinctiveness.  Given  the  appropriate 
stimulus,  the  instinctive  response  is  assured.  (2)  It  is  developed 
in  man  in  whom  ethical  impulses  and  other  social  instincts  are  well 
developed.  (3)  Religious  expressions  are  spontaneously  developed. 
(4)  Activities  involved  in  rehgious  expression  have  some  biological 

'  C.  p.  Tide,  Elements  of  the  Science  of  Religion,  II,  230-31. 
'  Morris  Jastrow,  The  Study  of  Religion,  pp.  196-98. 
3  D.  G.  Brinton,  Religions  of  Primitive  People,  p.  47. 
<  H.  R.  Marshall,  Instinct  and  Reason,  chap.  ix. 


THEORY  OF  RELIGIOUS  AND  SCIENTIFIC  INSTINCTS      59 

function,  some  import  to  the  race.  (5)  The  rise  of  religious  activ- 
ities is  anterior  to  the  speculative,  intellectual  life.  He  then  pro- 
ceeds to  the  assumption  of  the  existence  of  a  religious  instinct  which 
expresses  itself  in  ascetic  practices,  fasting,  prayer,  sacrifice,  making 
of  pilgrimages,  etc.  He  sums  up  his  thesis  in  the  statement: 
"Religious  activities  are  the  expression  of  a  true  instinct;  and  the 
religious  instinct  must  be  looked  on  as  our  highest  instinct  because 
its  function  is  regulative  of  reason,  tending  to  bring  about  sub- 
ordination of  variation  to  the  typical  reactions  lower  than  those 
expressive  of  the  religious  instinct  itself,  in  case  variation  becomes 
over-influential.  "^ 

Renan  is  another  writer  who  upheld  the  theory  in  question.  He 
said  that  reHgion  was  as  instinctive  in  man  as  the  nest-building 
instinct  in  the  birds.^ 

Starbuck,  in  his  well-known  book  on  The  Psychology  of  Religion, 
in  one  of  the  opening  paragraphs  makes  the  statement  that  "religion 
is  a  life,  a  deep-rooted  instinct,"^  which  expresses  itself  as  certainly 
as  hunger  and  the  desire  for  exercise.  But  we  shall  find  this 
author  taking  a  position  in  the  latter  part  of  the  book  which  is  not 
quite  the  same  as  this. 

One  of  the  most  recent  expressions  of  this  hypothesis  is  to  be 
found  in  these  words  from  the  pen  of  Professor  W.  E.  Hocking: 
"Religion  is  to  be  understood  as  a  product  and  manifesto  of  human 

desire Religion  is  a  reaction  to    'our   finite   situation,'  a 

natural  reflex  of  small  and  highly  aspiring  beings  in  a  huge — per- 
haps infinite — arena.  This  reaction  seems  to  be,  at  its  heart,  as 
instinctive  as  a  start  or  a  shudder.  ""^  In  other  passages  also  he 
makes  reference  to  "the  religious  instinct. "^  The  external  expres- 
sions of  religion,  such  as  prayer  and  worship,  are  also  spoken  of  as 
instinctive.*^ 

'Marshall,  op.  cit.,  p.  528. 

*  E.  Renan,  Studies  of  Religious  History,  pp.  xxiv  and  153.  He  also  uses  the 
expression,  "the  eternal  instinct  which  induces  man  to  adopt  a  religious  belief." 
Cf.  Ribot,  Psychology  of  the  Emotions,  p.  307. 

3  E.  D.  Starbuck,  The  Psychology  of  Religion,  p.  7. 

4  W.  E.  Hocking,  The  Meaning  of  God  in  Human  Experience,  pp.  49-50. 
sJUd.,  pp.  43,  151,  474.      ,  ('Ibid.,  pp.  341,  342,  358, 


6o        THE  RELATION  BETWEEN  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE 

There  are  some  authors  who  have  postulated  a  religious  instinct 
who  would  not  do  the  same  for  science  because  they  take  the 
ground  that  the  differentiation  between  religion  and  science  consists 
in  the  fact  that  religion  is  instinctive,  while  science  involves  intel- 
lection. The  position  that  instinct  and  intelligence  produce  two 
sorts  of  knowledge  which  may  be  kept  apart  is  an  epistemological 
position  dependent  upon  a  faculty  psychology.  Biology,  in  proving 
the  unity  of  the  neural  processes,  has  given  psychology  a  unifying 
conception  of  the  mental  processes  which  is  functional,  thus  retiring 
the  epistemology  which  would  assign  religious  knowledge  and 
scientific  knowledge  to  separate  faculties.  Even  if  we  grant  that 
the  scientific  attitude  has  in  it  more  of  the  cognitive  element  than 
the  religious  attitude,  we  are  still  able  to  find  the  instinctive  genesis 
of  cognition. 

There  are  a  few  writers  who  have  referred  to  a  scientific  instinct. 
It  may  be  that  it  is  due  to  a  loose  manner  of  writing,  but  we  are 
justified  in  criticizing  their  use  of  the  term,  whatever  may  have 
been  the  motivation.  In  this  way  we  find  Starbuck  speaking  of  a 
psychical  instinct  and  an  intellectual  instinct.''  So  also  in  Professor 
Hocking's  book  there  appears  this  curious  combination  of  words: 
"It  is  not  our  religious  instinct  alone,  but  something  much  like  an 
acquired  scientific  instinct  which  sends  us  looking  today  among  the 
feeling-roots  of  religion  for  its  essence.  Into  the  building  of  that 
scientific  instinct  have  entered  many  strands."^ 

The  statements  which  express  or  infer  the  existence  in  man  of 
specific  religious  and  scientific  instincts  are  at  variance  with  a 
scientific  understanding  of  all  three  terms,  science,  religion,  and 
instinct.  It  has  been  shown  that  the  differentiation  between  religion 
and  science  is  to  be  made  psychologically  in  the  realm  of  attitudes. 
From  the  psychological  point  of  view,  attitudes  are  much  higher  up 
the  scale  than  instincts.  We  may  state  it  somewhat  as  follows: 
The  conflict  which  takes  place  between  the  instinctive  and  innate 
tendencies,  or  between  the  means  available  for  the  satisfaction  of 
those  instinctive  and  innate  tendencies,  results  in  the  emergence  of 

'  Starbuck,  op.  cii.,  p.  339,  the  impulse  to  know  is  called  a  "psychical  instinct"; 
p.  270,  the  author  speaks  of  the  "intellectual  instinct." 
'  W.  E.  Hocking,  op.  cii.,  p.  42. 


THEORY  OF  RELIGIOUS  AND  SCIENTIFIC  INSTINCTS      6i 

a  desire  toward  the  realization  of  an  end  of  which  man  is  conscious. 
In  the  next  stage  we  meet  with  a  conflict  of  these  desires  which 
induces  a  further  operation  of  the  selective  process.  Certain  desires 
are  emphasized  and  cultivated;  others  are  obstructed  and  inhibited. 
This  means  that  attitudes  and  habits  are  formed.  And  here  we 
arrive  at  the  field  in  which  we  have  located  the  differentiation  of 
the  two  disciplines.  In  their  present  manner  of  functioning,  both 
religion  and  science  belong  to  a  more  complex  sphere  of  life  than 
that  characterized  by  simple  instinctive  behavior.  The  attitudes 
have  evolved  from  a  complex  of  desires  which  go  back  to  a  further 
complexity  in  which  various  instincts  interact. 

For  criticisms  of  the  theory  of  a  specific  religious  instinct 
reference  may  be  made  to  the  works  of  Irving  King'  and  Coe.^  The 
criticism  of  Coe  is  especially  of  interest  and  value  as  coming  from 
one  who,  in  one  of  his  earlier  publications,  spoke  very  decidedly  of 
the  religious  instinct  and  the  intellectual  instinct.^  But  in  the 
later  book  he  has  completely  abandoned  that  hypothesis.  It  is 
evident  from  the  phenomena  of  religion  that  there  is  no  specific 
set  of  stimuli  which  incites  a  religious  reaction,  and,  further,  that 
there  is  no  typical  reaction  which  may  be  called  religious.  And 
the  criticisms  apply  with  equal  cogency  to  the  notion  of  a  scientific 
instinct. 

From  the  point  of  view  of  our  working  definition  of  instinct, 
the  refutation  of  the  hypothesis  of  a  specific  religious  instinct  or  a 
scientific  instinct  should  be  quite  feasible.  The  religious  and  the 
scientific  attitudes  may  be  compared  to  instincts  in  that  they  are 
characteristic  of  and  serviceable  to  the  species  and  capable  of  sub- 
sequent modifications.  But  these  attitudes  are  both  characterized 
by  an  element  of  intelligence,  and  religion  especially  by  an  emo- 
tional tone,  neither  of  which  belong  to  behavior,  which  finds  its 
physiological  correlate  in  neural  processes  involving  only  the  sub- 
cortical regions.  If  religion  be  put  in  the  sarn.e  class  as  "a  start 
or  a  shudder,"  as  we  noted  Professor  Hocking  placed  it,  then  it  is 

'  Irving  King,  The  Development  of  Religion,  pp.  25  ff. 

^  G.  A.  Coe,  The  Psychology  of  Religion,  p.  323. 

3  G.  A.  Coe,  The  Religion  of  a  Mature  Mind,  pp.  52,  58,  247. 


62        THE  RELATION  BETWEEN  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE 

a  tj^e  of  reaction  which  involves  the  afferent  and  eflferent  nerves 
and  the  spinal  cord  and  does  not  require  the  brain  at  all. 

If  the  conclusions  of  the  biologists  are  correct,  as  their  experi- 
ments seem  to  show,  then  a  decerebrate  animal  is  capable  of  all 
known  instinctive  reactions.  That  being  the  case,  there  seems  no 
good  reason  why  the  person  who  is  defective  in  cerebral  matter, 
according  to  the  theory  of  a  religious  instinct,  should  not  be  capable 
of  being  religious  in  the  same  way  as  a  person  of  normal  capacities. 
But  the  truth  is  that  there  is  no  combination  of  reflexes  which  have 
been  integrated  by  the  nervous  system  in  such  a  way  that  it  effects 
an  instinctive  reaction  that  can  be  designated  as  specifically 
religious.  Neither  is  it  possible  to  find  a  specifically  scientific 
instinct  as  a  result  of  a  neural  integration  of  a  certain  group  of 
reflexes. 

The  assumption  of  Marshall  and  others  who  hold  to  a  religious 
instinct  is  tied  up  with  the  idea  that  there  is  an  element  of  con- 
sciousness in  all  instinctive  behavior.  But  our  biological  observa- 
tions have  precluded  an  acceptance  of  that  theory.  Consciousness 
is  present  when  the  activity  includes  cerebral  cortical  processes, 
while  instinctive  behavior  in  its  primal  form  is  subcortical.  The 
religious  attitude  involves  an  element  of  consciousness,  and  it  is 
difficult  to  understand  how  any  scholar  can  reduce  it  to  the  sim- 
plicity of  "a  natural  reflex  ....  as  instinctive  as  a  start  or  a 
shudder,"  as  we  have  observed  to  be  the  position  of  Professor 
Hocking. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  EFFORT  TO  IDENTIFY  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE 
WITH  CERTAIN  SPECIFIC  INSTINCTS 

The  last  chapter  was  engaged  with  a  discussion  of  the  hypoth- 
esis of  specific  instincts  for  the  rehgious  and  scientific  reactions. 
This  chapter  is  intended  to  serve  as  criticism  of  the  theories  which 
endeavor  to  account  for  the  rise  of  religion  and  science  by  reference 
to  specific  instincts  with  which  they  are  identified. 

A  further  approach  toward  the  solution  of  the  genetic  problem 
is  in  the  direction  of  identifying  one  or  both  of  the  religious  and 
scientific  disciplines  with  specific  instincts.  This  is  not  the  same 
position  as  that  of  those  who  posit  religious  and  scientific  instincts, 
though  it  has  this  in  common  with  that  hypothesis  that  it  resolves 
both  of  them  to  a  single  root. 

Campanella  Tommaso,  the  Italian  philosopher  who  was  a 
contemporary  of  Giordano  Bruno,  1 568-1 639,  declared  religion  to 
be  an  inherent  part  of  existence,  and  identified  it  in  its  lowest 
form  with  the  instinct  of  self-preservation.^  A  somewhat  similar 
position  is  taken  by  Angus te  Sabatier,  who  speaks  of  faith  as  "the 
higher  form"  of  the  instinct  of  conservation,  and  of  man  as  "in- 
curably religious, "  and  again  of  the  religious  need  as  a  manifesta- 
tion of  the  "instinct  of  every  being  to  persevere  in  being. "^ 

Reference  has  already  been  made  to  the  position  of  Professor 
Hocking  in  positing  a  religious  instinct  which  is  compared  to 
behavior  as  instinctive  as  starts  and  shudders.  In  other  passages 
the  author  virtually  identifies  this  religious  instinct  with  the 
instinct  of  self-preservation.  He  quotes  from  Lippert's  Kultur- 
geschichte,  chapter  i,  where  that  author  derives  religion  from  the 
fundamental  need  of  "Lebensfiirsorge,"  and  says  that  this  deep-set 
desire  which  we  call  religious  may  "be  represented  as  an  ultimate 

^Encyclopaedia  Brilannica   (nth  ed.),  V,  121,  122,  article  "Campanella,  Tom- 


maso." 

'  Auguste 

Sabatier, 

op. 

cit., 

.  PP- 

3, 

9, 

21. 
63 

64        THE  RELATION  BETWEEN  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE 

demand  for  conscious  self-preservation."'  Again  he  describes  the 
religious  passion  as  seeking  to  secure  satisfaction  for  the  "instinct 
of  self-preservation.  "^  Further  he  refers  to  this  instinct  as  prompt- 
ing the  search  for  the  Absolute.^  And  yet  again  worship  is  deline- 
ated as  "a  spontaneous  impulse  for  spiritual  self-preservation."'' 

The  history  of  biological  evolution  leads  to  the  conclusion  that 
instinctive  action  is  characterized  by  the  ability  to  be  serviceable 
on  the  first  occasion  to  the  organism  or  to  the  species.  Darwin 
would  have  explained  it  on  the  theory  of  natural  selection  in  the 
struggle  for  existence.  Some  would  deny  the  existence  of  a  specific 
instinct  of  self-preservation,  and  use  the  term  for  a  group  of  in- 
stincts, as,  e.g. ,  Kirkpatrick.^  Others  would  take  the  ground  that  the 
preservation  of  the  self  and  of  the  species  is  the  end  of  all  instinctive 
behavior.  Those  who  admit  of  a  specific  instinct  of  self-preservation 
usually  connect  it  with  physiological  processes  such  as  are  de- 
signed to  maintain  nutrition,  expel  poison,  and  ward  off  danger. 
Ribot  points  out  that  this  instinct  on  its  offensive  side  gives  rise  to 
the  emotion  of  anger,  and  on  its  defensive  side  to  the  emotion  of 
fear.*  Doubtless  the  desire  for  self-preservation  is  one  of  the 
contributory  causes,  but  it  would  require  an  unwarranted  breadth 
to  the  definition  of  the  instinct  of  self-preservation  to  justify  an 
identification  of  religion  with  it. 

Another  theory  which  has  been  advanced  is  that  which  finds 
the  source  of  religion  in  the  sexual  instinct.  Students  of  the 
sociology  of  religion  find  that  there  is  a  kinship  between  the  reli- 
gious and  the  sexual  Hfe.  As  we  shall  see,  there  are  many  points 
of  contact  as,  e.g.,  in  the  adolescent  experiences  and  the  initiation 
ceremonies  which  were  so  often  observed  at  that  period.  As 
Starbuck  points  out  with  reference  to  the  attainment  of  puberty: 
"The  physiological  birth  brings  with  it  the  dawning  of  all  those 
spiritual  accompaniments  which  are  necessary  to  the  fullest  social 

activities This  is  the  time  biologically  when  one  enters 

into  deep  relation  with  social  life."^     So  marked  is  the  kinship 

'  Hocking,  op.  cit.,  p.  49.  '  Ibid.,  p.  106. 

•'  Ibid.,  pp.  202,  203.  "  Ibid.,  p.  366. 

s  Kirkpatrick,  Fundamenlals  of  Child  Study.    See  his  classification  of  the  instincts. 

^  Ribot,  op.  cit.,  pp.  207,  218.  '  Starbuck,  op.  cit.,  p.  401. 


RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE  AND  SPECIFIC  INSTINCTS       65 

that  it  has  led  the  author  to  conclude  that  "in  a  certain  sense  the 
religious  life  is  an  irradiation  of  the  reproductive  instinct."^  He 
makes  it  clear,  however,  that  the  sexual  instinct  is  to  be  considered 
rather  as  a  condition  of  growth  than  as  a  cause.  "The  sexual  life, 
although  it  has  left  its  impress  on  fully  developed  religion,  seems 
to  have  originally  given  the  psychic  impulse  which  called  out  the 
latent  possibilities  of  development,  rather  than  to  have  furnished 

the  raw  material  out  of  which  religion  was  constructed 

Although  the  reproductive  instinct  may  be  primal,  it  seems  to  have 
been  entirely  superseded  as  a  distinct  factor  in  reHgious  growth 
by  other  elements."^  In  another  passage  Professor  Starbuck 
makes  reference  to  two  works — Havelock  Ellis,  Mati  and  Wofnan, 
p.  295,  and  Burnham,  A  Study  of  Adolescence,  Pedagogical  Semi- 
nary, I,  181,  which  base  the  phenomena  of  the  religious  life  largely 
on  the  sexual.^ 

The  view  to  which  Professor  Starbuck  has  given  expression  is 
quoted  by  Professor  Ames,  and  with  a  more  precise  definition 
he  approves  of  it.  He  points  out  the  importance  of  recognizing 
that  it  is  the  social  character  of  the  sexual  life  that  is  important 
for  religion,  and  in  that  sense  may  be  regarded  as  "an  irradiation 
of  the  reproductive  instinct."^  Bearing  in  mind  that  Professor 
Ames  makes  the  food-seeking  and  reproductive  instincts  basal  to 
all,  we  can  appreciate  the  reason  that  he  traces  the  genesis  of  the 
social  life  to  the  sexual  instinct,  as  against  the  position  of  many 
other  psychologists  who  affirm  that  there  is  a  specific  instinct 
of  gregariousness.  In  his  definition  he  identifies  it  with  the  highest 
social  values.^  Consequently  he  is  entirely  consistent  in  tracing 
the  genesis  of  religion  to  the  sexual  instinct. 

Professor  Thomas  seems  to  take  a  somewhat  similar  position. 
He  is  quite  explicit  in  defining  the  food  and  sex  instincts  as  elemen- 
tal.^   And  again  he  bases  the  social  life  on  the  sexual.^    He  does 

^Ibid.  ^  Ibid.,  p.  207. 

'  Ibid.,  p.  402.  t  Ames,  op.  cit.,  pp.  221,  222. 

5  Ibid.,  p.  168:  "The  religious  consciousness  is  identified  with  the  consciousness 
of  the  greatest  values  of  life." 

^  W.  I.  Thomas,  Sex  and  Society,  pp.  97-99. 
T  Ibid.,  p.  107. 


66        THE  RELATION  BETWEEN  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE 

not  make  any  extended  reference  to  the  matter  of  religion,  but  he 
makes  this  statement:  "The  appeal  made  during  a  religious  re- 
vival to  an  unconverted  person  has  psychologically  some  resem- 
blance to  the  appeal  of  the  male  to  overcome  the  hesitancy  of  the 
female  ....  in  both  cases  the  appeal  is  an  intimate,  sympathetic, 
and  pleading  kind.  "^ 

The  connection  between  religion  and  the  sexual  life  is  one 
which  can  be  readily  demonstrated,  and  we  shall  endeavor  to  show 
that  in  the  genesis  of  religion  an  important  role  may  be  assigned 
to  the  behavior  which  was  originated  by  the  reactions  connected 
with  the  sexual  life.  However,  our  biological  considerations 
preclude  us  from  an  acceptance  of  the  theory.  The  instinctive 
reactions  are  of  such  a  nature  that  it  would  be  difficult  to  make  a 
list  that  would  be  agreeable  to  everybody.  Even  though  we  may 
be  prepared  to  admit  that  the  elemental  interests  of  life  are  the 
struggle  for  food  and  the  rivalry  for  mates,  those  interests  cannot 
be  shown  to  be  the  only  specific  groups  of  reflexes  which  have  been 
integrated  by  the  nervous  system.  There  are  other  reactions 
which  can  be  shown  to  be  instinctive,  yet  which  serve  these  elemen- 
tal interests  only  in  an  indirect  way.  The  cortical  regions  are 
marked  by  the  tendency  to  make  use  of  the  data  which  are  secured 
by  the  automatic  responses  which  center  in  the  subcortical  regions. 
In  this  way  behavior  that  at  first  is  entirely  automatic  may  be 
made  to  serve  specific  ends.  But  in  their  primal  forms  these 
instinctive  reactions  cover  a  wide  range  of  activity  in  which  there 
is  action  and  interaction,  marked  by  variety  and  complication. 
These  tendencies  include,  to  be  sure,  behavior  that  is  serviceable 
in  the  obtaining  of  food  and  in  mating  and  procreating.  But  they 
include  also  behavior  that  serves  the  purposes  of  self-protection 
either  by  flight  or  pugnacity,  of  associational  life  in  flocks,  herds, 
and  social  groups,  and  of  prying  into  that  which  is  strange,  etc. 
The  length  of  one's  list  depends  upon  whether  the  dominating 
interest  is  to  analyze  or  to  classify. 

Another  example  of  an  unscientific  use  of  the  word  "instinct" 
in  applying  it  to  the  genesis  of  religion  and  science  is  to  be  found 
in  Hardy,  The  Religious  Instinct.     The  title  would  seem  to  suggest 

'  W.  I.  Thomas,  Sex  and  Society,  p.  115. 


RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE  AND  SPECIFIC  INSTINCTS       67 

that  there  is  a  specific  religious  instinct;  but  not  so  the  argument. 
He  states  his  theory  on  pp.  41  ff.,  that 

what  we  call  the  instinct  of  approach — of  which  propitiation  is  one  expression- 
must  be  accepted  as  the  source  of  the  whole  active  religious  phenomena  of 
the  race.  Here  we  have  something  as  fundamental  as  the  instincts  of  causation 
and  self-preservation.  If  the  former  of  these — ^that  of  causation — ^has  proved 
the  basis  of  all  intellectual  advance,  and  the  latter — the  instinct  of  self- 
preservation — the  mainspring  of  all  man's  social  organization,  why  should  not 
the  instinct,  so  universal,  so  ineradicable,  as  this  of  "approach"  prove  as  valid 
in  its  direction  as  its  kindred  instincts  have  done  in  theirs  ? 

It  is  apparent  that  in  the  sense  in  which  the  author  uses  the  word 
"instinct"  he  is  thinking  of  something  involving  conscious  ex- 
perience, much  more  complex  than  behavior,  which  may  technically 
be  called  instinctive. 

There  is  a  similar  tendency,  though  of  perhaps  less  frequent 
appearance,  to  identify  science  with  a  specific  instinct.  May  it 
not  be  that  there  are  fewer  tendencies  to  speculate  about  the 
genesis  of  science  than  about  the  genesis  of  religion  because  the 
scientist  is  more  interested  in  functions  than  he  is  in  origins? 
The  scientific  method  has  long  been  in  vogue  in  science  itself.  But 
the  subjective  nature  of  the  material  and  the  a  priori  conceptions 
of  its  divine  origin  have  prevented  a  thoroughly  objective  treatment 
of  religion.  We  are  only  beginning  to  apply  the  scientific  method 
to  religion,  and  thus  to  get  a  science  of  religion.  Science  has 
become  completely  emancipated  from  the  view  that  the  validity 
of  her  knowledge  is  determined  by  reference  to  its  source. 

Shand  traces  the  genesis  of  science  to  the  instinct  of  curiosity. 
The  definition  of  curiosity  as  an  instinct  is  in  the  sense  that  its 
end  is  innately  determined,  and  not  in  the  sense  that  its  "behavior 
which  is  instrumental  to  this  end  is  also  innately  determined." 
The  behavior  which  is  the  correlate  of  curiosity  is  distinguished, 
not  by  a  special  set  of  movements,  "but  by  the  way  in  which 
they  are  combined."^  He  admits,  however,  that  in  some  of  the 
simpler  and  earlier  forms  the  movements  are  quite  instinctive.^ 
Curiosity  having  been  shown  to  be  instinctive,  the  author  follows 
McDougall  in  making  wonder  the  primary  emotion  which  accom- 
panies it.^    Then  he  proceeds  to  show  that  wonder  reacts  in  two 

'  Shand,  op.  cit.,  p.  439.  *  Ibid.,  p.  440.  ^  Ibid.,  p.  442. 


68        THE  RELATION  BETWEEN  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE 

diverse  ways.  In  the  one  case  it  becomes  the  source  of  the  love  of 
knowledge,  basic  to  science  and  philosophy.  In  the  other  it  gives 
rise  to  the  love  of  mysterj^  an  element  in  religion.  Wonder,  he 
says,  "is  the  force  and  principle  of  the  mind  which  leads  us  to 

pursue  truth  for  itself  as  an  end In  wonder  curiosity  is 

freed  from  alien  control,  and  pursues  knowledge  as  an  end."' 

Ribot  also,  in  his  account  of  the  genesis  of  "the  intellectual 
sentiment,"  says:   "This  feeling,  lilce  all  the  others,  depends  on  an 

instinct,  a  tendency,  a  craving This  primitive  craving — 

the  craving  for  knowledge — under  its  instinctive  form  is  called 
curiosity."  In  the  evolution  of  this  sentiment,  the  writer  dis- 
tinguishes three  stages,  the  first  being  the  utilitarian  and  practical, 
the  second  disinterested  and  scientific,  and  in  the  third  it  becomes 
a  passion.^  Whatever  we  may  think  of  his  third  stage,  we  must 
admit  that  he  is  correct  in  finding  the  genesis  of  the  scientific 
attitude  in  the  practical. 

There  is  a  tendency  in  some  quarters  to  find  the  origin  of  science 
connected  with  the  behavior  resulting  from  the  instinct  to  obtain 
food.  Professor  Ames,  e.g.,  makes  reference  to  "science  exemplify- 
ing the  insight  and  mastery  worked  out  in  connection  with  the 
food  process."^  Professor  Thomas  finds  that  the  "strain  on  the 
attention  in  the  food  and  conflict  side  of  life  involves  the  develop- 
ment of  mental  impressionability,  particularly  of  an  impression- 
ability on  the  side  of  cognition.  "^ 

The  same  arguments  which  prevented  the  acceptance  of  the 
theories  which  proposed  a  single  root  for  the  origin  of  the  religious 
attitude  apply  in  the  case  of  the  genesis  of  the  scientific  attitude. 
The  complexity  of  life  and  the  variety  of  instinctive  responses  lead 
to  the  conclusion  that  the  root  of  science,  as  well  as  of  religion,  is 
analogous  rather  to  the  fibrous  than  to  the  taproot,  is  multiple 
rather  than  unitary.  The  statements  of  Shand  and  Ribot  on  the 
curiosity  origin,  and  of  Ames  and  Thomas  on  the  food  origin  of 
the  scientific  attitude,  are  both  true,  and  because  they  are  both 
true,  each  of  them  expresses  only  a  part  of  the  matter. 

'  Shand,  op.  cil.,  pp.  449,  450.  ^  Ames,  op.  ciL,  pp.  416,  417. 

'  Ribot,  op.  cit.,  pp.  368,  369.  "  Thomas,  op.  cii.,  pp.  118,  119. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  MULTIPLE  INSTINCTIVE  ORIGIN  OF  RELIGION 

AND  SCIENCE 

It  is  the  ambition  of  the  present  chapter  to  present  and  defend 
the  thesis  that  the  origin  of  both  the  religious  and  scientific  atti- 
tudes, while  instinctive,  is  at  the  same  time  multiple.  This  is 
done  by  a  reference  to  the  differentiation  proposed  in  the  fourth 
chapter,  and  then  by  an  attempt  to  show  that  such  a  differentiation 
may  grow  out  of  the  instinctive  behavior  connected  with  any  set 
of  instincts.  In  this  case  illustrations  are  drawn  from  the  instinc- 
tive reactions  in  connection  with  five  of  the  leading  types  of  stimuli. 

The  great  truth  which  Hes  behind  the  theories  that  we  have 
noted  is  that  the  religious  and  scientific  attitudes  have  their  genesis 
in  the  innate  and  instinctive  dispositions  and  behavior  of  the  race. 
The  thesis  which  I  propose  is  that  the  origin  of  both  religion  and 
science,  whUe  instinctive,  is  multiple.  We  must  bear  in  mind 
that  there  are  no  such  things  as  religion  and  science,  in  the 
sense  of  species.  Both  are  generic  terms.  There  are  religions 
and  sciences.  We  may  say  of  both  what  William  James  said  of 
religion,  viz.,  that  they  are  "collective  names  like  government."^ 
The  various  species  of  these  two  genera  are  so  multiform 
that  it  has  been  difficult  to  get  a  definition  of  religion.  Most 
definitions  have  been  in  terms  of  the  species  in  which  the  author 
was  especially  interested.  The  common  element  in  all  religions, 
as  Dr.  Watson  has  pointed  out,  is  "the  social  attitude  toward 
the  non-human  environment,"  and  the  common  element  in  the 
sciences  is  the  "mechanical  attitude  toward  the  non-human 
environment."^ 

Therefore  we  are  concerned  with  a  variety  of  phenomena  that 
are  connected  with  the  rise  of  these  attitudes.  The  history  of 
religions  furnishes  us  with  a  heterogeneity  of  data,  representing 

'  William  James,  The  Varieties  of  Religions  Experience,  p.  26. 

*  A.  C.  Watson,  "The  Logic  of  Religion,"  American  Journal  oj  Theology,  XX,  98. 

69 


70        TEE  RELATION  BETWEEN  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE 

interests  as  varied  as  life  itself.  Whatever  may  be  one's  theory  of 
man's  origination  of  an  extra-human  environment,  it  must  be 
evident  to  the  student  of  history  that  he  has  associated  almost  all 
of  the  interests  of  life  at  some  time  with  that  environment  in  his 
struggle  for  existence.  So  too  the  history  of  the  sciences  furnishes 
evidence  of  a  progressive  attempt  to  gain  dominion  by  mechanical 
means  over  the  forces  by  which  he  was  environed.  Man,  in  his 
achievement  of  religion  and  science,  was  not  dealing  with  phe- 
nomena which  he  was  able  to  differentiate  under  these  two  captions. 
They  are  both  of  them  human  products,  arising  in  a  human  environ- 
ment by  the  effort  of  man  as  he  attempted  to  gain  control  in  the 
great  struggle  for  existence.  They  represent  variant  attitudes 
toward  the  extra-human  environment  in  accordance  with  whether 
that  environment  was  conceived  to  be  amenable  to  social  relation- 
ships or  to  be  wholly  under  mechanistic  law.  So  that  they  involved, 
to  a  considerable  extent,  the  same  human  interests,  and  arose  as 
differentiable  techniques  in  the  struggles  and  conflicts  of  Ufe  which 
was  characterized  by  a  unified  type  of  instinctive  behavior. 

This  thesis  may  be  illustrated  by  reference  to  different  types  of 
instinctive  behavior,  and  I  shall  attempt  to  illustrate  it  by  a  brief 
treatment  of  the  instinctive  reactions  connected  with  (i)  the  obtain- 
ing of  food,  (2)  mating  and  procreating,  (3)  self-preservation, 
(4)  contact  with  the  strange  and  unusual,  and  (5)  gregariousness. 

I.      THE   INSTINCTIVE    REACTIONS   CONNECTED    WITH   THE 

SECURING   OF   FOOD 

The  importance  of  the  supply  of  food  is  apparent,  for  with  that 
is  tied  up  the  existence  of  the  individuals  of  the  group.  The 
necessity  of  food  underlies  the  total  economic  Hfe,  and  it  is  to  the 
ordinary  man  the  all-absorbing  interest.  In  prehistoric  times 
anthropologists  conclude  that  primitive  man  inhabited  the  equa- 
torial regions  where  his  wants  were  simple,  and  nature  offered  an 
ample  supply  to  him  of  those  things  which  were  necessary  to  his 
existence.  But  as  time  passed  there  came  about  critical  situations 
in  this  phase  of  the  struggle  for  existence.  We  have  observed  that 
the  reflective  process  was  a  product  of  a  conflict  of  instincts  or  of 
conflicting  ways  of  securing  satisfaction  for  those  instincts.     When 


INSTINCTIVE  ORIGIN  OF  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE         71 

the  natural  supply  of  food  failed,  or  became  limited,  and  man  had 
to  go  into  unexplored  regions  to  supply  his  needs,  he  faced  crises 
which  induced  reflection.  When  a  choice  was  presented  to  him, 
because  of  the  luxuriance  of  the  available  supply,  he  was  compelled 
to  call  into  being  a  selective  process,  and  so  the  conflict  realm 
induced  reflection.  The  latter  situation  was  not  one  in  which  he 
needed  to  seek  for  any  outside  assistance,  for  it  was  simply  a  matter 
of  gratifying  his  particular  taste.  But  the  former  situation  con- 
stituted a  crisis  and  demanded  action.  It  called  for  the  creation 
of  some  technique  to  help  him  over  such  critical  experiences. 

If  we  go  into  the  accounts  of  the  ways  in  which  primitive  peoples 
actually  met  such  situations,  we  find  a  considerable  degree  of  uni- 
formity in  the  techniques  which  they  worked  out.  The  first  of 
the  techniques  to  be  mentioned  is  magic.  Magic  is  an  attempt 
to  get  satisfaction  for  a  desired  end  by  reference  to  some  occult 
powers.  It  is  an  attempt  at  coercion,  and  is  based  upon  the  belief 
that  if  one  knows  the  proper  occult  means  the  securing  of  the  desired 
end  is  inevitable.  Hence  magical  behavior  is  intended  to  coerce 
the  occult  powers  to  do  the  thing  needed.  It  is  not  necessary  for 
our  purposes  to  go  into  an  extended  discussion  of  magic,  the 
attempted  classifications,  etc.  The  point  of  importance  for  us  to 
note  is  that  it  arose  as  a  technique  to  help  man  over  critical  sit- 
uations, many  of  which  arose  in  connection  with  the  supply  of 
food.  How  was  a  good  crop  of  grain  or  fruit,  or  a  good  catch  of 
fish,  or  a  plentiful  supply  of  rain  to  be  secured  ?  Magic  was  one 
solution.  The  system  was  completely  wired  so  that,  if  you  knew 
how  to  turn  on  the  switch,  the  circuit  was  complete  and  the  result 
inevitable. 

The  question  that  concerns  us  is  the  question  as  to  the  connec- 
tion of  magic  with  religion  and  science.  Magical  practices  arose 
in  an  age  prior  to  the  differentiation  of  the  various  attitudes.  It 
was  a  pre-psychological  period.  We  are  not  compelled  to  try  to 
identify  magic  with  one  human  attitude  to  the  exclusion  of  the 
others.  On  the  one  hand,  if  the  conception  of  religion  as  a  social 
attitude  toward  the  extra-human  environment  be  correct,  magic 
has  elements  that  are  decidedly  reHgious.  If  the  definition  used 
the  phrase  superhuman  instead  of  extra-human,  magic  would  have 


72        THE  RELATION  BETWEEN  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE 

to  be  excluded  in  the  majority  of  cases.  Magical  practices  were 
sometimes  directed  to  the  object  directly;  sometimes  to  a  spirit 
or  god,  when  it  was  tied  to  animism.  The  very  recognition  of 
an  occult  power  which  man  is  endeavoring  to  coerce  implies  a 
socializing  tendency  which  is  at  least  on  the  way  to  religion. 

On  the  other  hand,  magic  is  also  prescientific.  It  was  man's 
endeavor  to  get  over  the  critical  situation  by  the  use  of  a  mechanical 
means.  In  many  instances  the  social  element  was  absent,  espe- 
cially in  private  magical  ceremonies  and  formulas,  and  indeed  in 
many  instances  of  pubhc  magic.  If  the  performance  of  a  ceremony 
or  recitation  of  a  formula  was  regarded  as  productive  of  the  desired 
end,  we  have  here  primitive  man's  first  conception  of  cause  and 
result.  It  was  by  no  means  a  regular  and  orderly  form  of  the 
causal  category,  but  it  was  a  beginning,  and  in  that  sense  it  was  a 
precursor  of  a  scientific  explanation. 

The  use  of  magical  practices  for  the  securing  of  an  abundant 
supply  of  food  may  be  illustrated  from  scores  of  sources.  We  need 
only  refer  to  the  rain-making  ceremonies  which  are  practiced  in 
Central  Africa  among  the  Agoni  people,  in  India,  in  Russia,  and 
in  Australia.'  Similarly  the  Indians  of  British  Columbia  resort  to 
magical  practices  to  insure  the  supply  of  salmon.^  In  Central 
Australia  sympathetic  magic  is  systematically  used  to  insure  the 
supply  of  the  totem  animal  or  plant,  which  is,  in  the  majority  of 
cases,  the  chief  article  of  diet.-*  Frazer  has  some  interesting 
accounts  of  ceremonial  dances  and  other  practices  observed  in 
certain  parts  of  Europe — Transylvania,  Baden,  and  Macedonia — 
to  make  the  crops  grow  high.'' 

The  connection  between  the  food  interest  and  religion  is  further 
observable  in  a  multiplicity  of  ceremonials  connected  with  various 
primitive  peoples.  With  the  evolution  of  a  supermundane  world, 
peopled  with  spirits,  some  benignant  and  some  malignant,  the 
human  task  was  to  relate  one's  self  in  such  a  way  to  that  world  as 

'  Cf.  J.  G.  Frazer,  The  Golden  Bough,  Part  I,  Vol.  I,  pp.  249,  250,  and  D.  G. 
Brinton,  Religions  of  Primitive  People,  pp.  173,  174,  for  accounts  of  rain-making 
ceremonies. 

'  Frazer,  op.  cit.,  p.  108. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  85.  "  Ibid.,  pp.  137-39- 


INSTINCTIVE  ORIGIN  OF  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE         73 

to  avoid  the  displeasure  and  to  procure  the  aid  of  these  spirits  in 
securing  the  satisfaction  for  felt  needs.  Hence  the  cult  arose  as  a 
technique  for  operating  on  the  wills  of  such  spirits  so  as  to  enlist 
their  sympathy  and  procure  their  assistance.  In  their  elemental 
forms  the  ceremonials  connected  with  the  cult  were  designed  to 
secure  satisfaction  for  those  needs  which  grew  out  of  instinctive 
behavior.  Illustrations  are  available  in  abundance.  Ceremonials 
connected  with  the  mother-goddess  associated  her  with  the  idea 
of  fertility.  Oases  were  the  sacred  spots  to  the  Arabs.  Sacrificial 
rites  were  connected  with  edible  animals.  The  images  and  objects 
of  worship  are  in  numerous  instances  the  characteristic  food 
objects  for  the  geographically  defined  region  where  the  worship 
prevails.  Totem  objects  are  in  the  majority  of  cases  the  most 
staple  food  objects  of  the  totem  clans.  Spencer  and  Gillen  give 
a  list  of  tribes  in  Central  AustraHa  with  their  respective  food  objects. 
The  totem  of  the  Ainus  was  a  bear;  of  the  Hopi  Indians,  maize; 
of  the  Arabs,  the  date  palm;  of  certain  Babylonian  people  on  the 
Persian  Gulf,  the  fish. 

Reference  has  been  made  to  a  suggestion  by  Professor  Ames 
that  science  illustrates  "the  insight  and  mastery  worked  out  in 
connection  with  the  food  process,"^  and  to  a  similar  position  taken 
by  Professor  Thomas.  There  seems  to  me  to  be  no  doubt  of  the 
correctness  of  this  theory.  With  the  development  of  the  observa- 
tional processes,  man  would  note  that  certain  fruits  and  certain 
grains  came  only  at  certain  seasons,  and  that  during  the  remainder 
of  the  year  there  was  no  supply.  Fisher  folk  would  observe  that 
certain  meteorological  conditions  were  favorable  and  others  un- 
favorable to  a  good  catch.  Hunting  people  would  find  climatic 
and  other  conditions  affecting  the  supply  of  game.  Thus  a  sense 
of  regularity,  of  conditionality,  and  hence  of  causality,  gradually 
evolved  in  connection  with  the  food  supply.  The  occurrence  of 
critical  situations,  as  the  natural  supply  became  insufficient  and 
man  had  to  evolve  mental  powers  to  help  him  over  the  crises,  would 
only  serve  to  make  his  observation  keener  as  to  conditionahty 
and  causality.  With  the  progress  of  time  this  led  to  practical 
reactions  in  the  evolution  of  primitive  agriculture  and  horticulture 

'  The  Psychology  of  Religious  Experience,  p.  416,  note. 


74        THE  RELATION  BETWEEN  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE 

as  techniques  by  which  man  might  gain  control  over  the  food 
supply.  So  that  the  reactions  of  the  food  instinct  led  in  this  way 
to  the  beginnings  of  a  scientific  attitude. 

II.      INSTINCTIVE   REACTIONS   CONNECTED   WITH  MATING   AND 

PROCREATING 

The  other  dominant  life-interest  is  that  of  reproduction.  If 
food  is  essential  to  the  existence  of  individuals,  mating  and  pro- 
creating are  necessary  to  the  preservation  of  the  species.  It  was 
to  be  expected  that  man,  in  his  desire  to  obtain  control  over  the 
forces  by  which  he  was  environed,  should  so  organize  his  techniques 
as  to  obtain  help  in  matters  relative  to  these  two  primal  life- 
interests.  We  have  seen  how  that  worked  out  in  regard  to  the 
food  interest.  It  may  be  shown  in  an  analogous  way  that  he  used 
both  the  social  and  the  mechanical  processes  in  attaining  control 
of  the  sexual  interests. 

The  argument  has  been  presented  for  an  understanding  of 
magic  which  involves  both  the  prereHgious  and  the  prescientific 
elements.  The  theory  which  was  appHed  to  magical  practices  in 
connection  with  the  food  process  apphes  in  precisely  the  same  way 
in  respect  to  magical  practices  connected  with  the  reproductive 
process.  Frazer  has  recounted  various  instances  where  the  resort 
has  been  to  sympathetic  magic  to  secure  the  ends  served  by  the 
procreative  instinct.  In  Sumatra  a  make-believe  child  is  used  for 
a  barren  woman  who  desires  children.  In  Greece,  Bulgaria,  and 
Bosnia  there  is  a  make-believe  ceremony  of  restoring  dead  persons 
to  life.  There  is  also  an  Indian  practice  of  shooting  darts  at  a  clay 
image  in  order  to  win  the  love  of  a  woman.^ 

In  some  instances  the  magical  practices  involve  both  the  food 
and  the  reproductive  interests.  It  is  a  carrying  over  of  the  idea 
of  fertility  from  the  region  of  the  sexual  Hfe  to  those  activities 
connected  with  the  food  supply.  "The  Greeks  and  Romans  sacri- 
ficed pregnant  victims  to  the  goddesses  of  corn  and  of  the  earth, 
doubtless  in  order  that  the  earth  might  teem,  and  corn  swell  in 
the  ear."^  Analogously  the  magical  value  of  pregnant  women  to 
communicate   fertility  was   a   widespread   belief.     Austrian   and 

'  Frazer,  op.  cit.,  pp.  70-77.  'Ibid.,  p.  141. 


INSTINCTIVE  ORIGIN  OF  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE         75 

Bavarian  peasants  gave  the  first  fruit  to  a  pregnant  woman  to  make 
the  tree  bear  abundantly.  Nicobar  Islanders  have  pregnant  women 
and  their  husbands,  and  Orinoco  Indians  have  pregnant  women, 
sow  the  seed  to  insure  a  good  crop.  In  some  tribes  the  blood  shed 
at  the  circumcision  and  subincision  of  boys  and  also  the  foreskin 
are  regarded  as  possessing  fertilizing  value,  and  so  are  buried  in 
proximity  to  the  crop  which  it  is  desired  to  cultivate.'  In  other 
cases  circumcision  is  regarded  as  in  the  nature  of  a  sacrifice  to  the 
goddess  of  fertility,  securing  the  protection  of  the  goddess  for  the 
child,  and  putting  the  child's  reproductive  powers  at  the  command 
of  the  deity.^ 

In  this  connection  reference  may  be  made  to  "taboo,"  which 
has  been  rightly  described  as  "negative  magic. "^  Taboo  has  its 
origin  in  the  social  structure,  and  its  origin  is  purely  human.  But 
in  animism  it  came  to  be  associated  with  the  rights  of  gods  and 
demons  which  were  not  to  be  infringed  upon,  without  the  trans- 
gressor endangering  himself  by  the  infringement.  It  has  been 
associated  with  food  objects,  with  sexual  functions,  and  with  dead 
bodies.  The  uncleanness  that  rests  with  all  sexual  functions  is 
most  marked.  Marriage,  a  woman  in  her  courses,  a  man  with  an 
issue,  and  the  birth  of  a  child  are  all  curiously  tabooed.  "This  is 
because  birth  and  everything  connected  with  the  propagation  of 
the  species  ....  seem  to  him  to  involve  the  action  of  superhuman 
agencies  of  a  dangerous  kind."'*  Thompson  gives  a  number  of 
instances  of  sexual  taboo,  as  (a)  menstruation  taboos,  {b)  co- 
habitation taboos,  (c)  childbirth  taboos,  (d)  girls  of  irregular 
menstruation  supposed  to  be  possessed  of  supernatural  power,  and 
(e)  men  fearful  of  interfering  with  the  harem  rights  of  gods  and 
goddesses.^  Here  we  have,  as  in  positive  magic,  the  social  attitude 
toward  powers  considered  to  be  extramundane,  and  also  a  primitive 
approximation  toward  a  causal  explanation  of  certain  mysterious 
phenomena. 

'  Ibid.,  pp.  95  ff.  *  Barton,  Semitic  Origins,  p.  100. 

3  Ames,  op.  cit.,  p.  88;  N.  W.  Thomas,  "Taboo,"  in  Encyclopaedia  Brilannica 
(nth  ed.),  XXVI,  337  flf. 

*  Thompson,  Semitic  Magic,  pp.  113,  114. 
5  Ibid.,  pp.  131-33. 


76        THE  RELATION  BETWEEN  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE 

The  ceremonies  connected  with  the  attainment  of  puberty 
afford  another  example  of  the  connection  between  sex  and  religion. 
The  phenomena  in  connection  with  puberty  were  mysterious  and 
seemed  to  involve  the  coming  to  birth  of  an  ability  to  perform 
certain  instinctive  reactions  hitherto  impossible.  It  is  the  period 
when  the  boy  or  the  girl  sees  the  dawn  of  the  adult  life,  and  in- 
volves the  birth  of  the  youth's  appreciation  of  his  or  her  part  in  the 
group  life.  Consequently  it  has  been  a  custom,  widespread  both 
chronologically  and  geographically,  to  mark  the  transition  by 
certain  sacred  rites,  almost  invariably  attended  with  an  element 
of  mystery.' 

Another  example  of  the  connection  between  religion  and  sex  is 
phallicism.  Examples  of  phallic  worship,  or  worship  of  the  genera- 
tive power  of  nature  as  symbolized  in  the  phallus,  may  be  seen  in 
the  history  of  the  religions  of  Greece,  Phoenicia,  Rome,  Mexico, 
Peru,  India,  and  Japan.^ 

Still  another  group  of  phenomena  may  be  cited  as  illustrating 
the  bond  of  connection  between  religion  and  sex.  I  refer  to  the 
conversion  phenomena  in  connection  with  the  Christian  religion. 
Those  who  have  made  thorough  investigations  in  this  field  have 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  conversion  is  a  distinctly  adolescent 
phenomenon.  From  the  biological  standpoint  we  have  noted  that 
the  adolescent  period  is  the  time  when  the  procreative  instincts 
are  awakened.  It  is  also  a  well-known  fact  that  adolescence  is  the 
period  of  life  in  which  the  majority  of  conversions  take  place.  The 
philosophy  of  the  situation  has  been  treated  in  the  works  of  Star- 
buck,  Stanley  Hall,  Coe,  Ames,  Leuba,  and  others,  and  need  not 
concern  us  here.  But  the  fundamental  connection  between  the 
religious  awakening  and  the  birth  of  the  sexual  instinct  seems  to  be 
proven  by  their  synchronous  appearance. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  man,  in  picturing  to  himself  the 
world  of  the  gods,  has  carried  over  the  elements  which  were  of 

'Examples  of  ceremonials  connected  with  puberty  and  initiation  abound.  Cf. 
Brinton,  Religions  of  Primitive  People,  pp.  197-200;  Jane  Harrison,  Ancient  Art 
and  Ritual,  pp.  106-13;  Frazer,  The  Golden  Bough,  copious  references. 

"  See  art.  "Phallicism,"  in  Encyclopaedia  Britannica  (nth  ed.),  XXI,  345,  and  art* 
"Phallism"  in  Hastings'  Encyclopedia  of  Religion  and  Ethics,  IX,  815  ff.,  by  Hartland- 


INSTINCTIVE  ORIGIN  OF  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE         77 

paramount  interest  in  human  life.  Surely  the  gods  must  be  like 
men,  possessed  of  like  interests  and  desires.  In  Assyrian  mythology 
the  goddess  Ishtar  is  pictured  as  conducting  amorous  relationships 
with  men.  In  Indian  literature  Krishna  is  portrayed  as  sporting 
with  shepherd  girls.  The  Mohammedan  idea  of  heaven  is  a  carry- 
ing over  into  the  other  world  the  degradation  of  womanhood  in 
sensuous  pictures. 

The  association  between  activity  connected  with  behavior 
induced  by  the  sexual  instinct  and  religion  is  established  by  an 
abundance  of  historical  evidence.  There  is  not  so  much  data  to 
show  the  connection  between  the  beginnings  of  science  and  pro- 
creative  activity.  At  the  same  time  there  is  evidence  that  cannot 
be  overlooked.  From  the  point  of  view  of  magic  and  taboo  the 
material  is  abundant  to  show  the  connection  with  the  reproductive 
life.  We  have  already  observed  that  magic  implies  a  mechanical 
technique  for  avoiding  dangers  and  overcoming  crises,  so  that  in 
magical  practices  we  have  the  prescientific  view  of  man  toward  the 
sexual  life.  The  progress  of  more  exact  conceptions  broke  down 
magical  causality  and  paved  the  way  for  a  scientific  causality. 

Barton  gives  it  as  his  opinion  that  among  the  Semites  "the 
beginnings  of  intelligent  life,  the  knowledge  of  clothing,  agriculture, 
and  the  arts  of  civilization,'"  were  attributed  to  the  sexual  relation. 
Thomas,  as  we  have  seen,  attributes  the  development  of  mental  im- 
pressionability to  the  strain  on  the  attention  in  connection  with  food 
and  reproduction.^  From  the  sexual  instinct  arises  a  susceptibility 
to  the  opinions  of  others,  resulting  in  the  mental  activity  of 
comparison  and  selection. 

One  of  the  best  evidences  for  the  theory  proposed  is  the  growth 
of  the  primitive  conception  of  paternity.^  Anthropologists  find 
that  in  primitivity  the  birth  of  children  was  a  mystery.  In  the 
beginning  the  father  of  the  child  did  not  understand  that  he  had  a 
part  in  the  reproductive  process,  owing  to  ignorance  concerning 
the  nature  of  physiological  processes.     But  as  the  understanding 

'  Barton,  op.  cit.,  pp.  loi,  102. 
^  Thomas,  Sex  and  Society,  pp.  118,  119. 

3  A  thorough  elaboration  may  be  consulted  in  the  work  of  E.  S.  Hartland,  Primitive 
Paternity,  2  vols.,  London,  1909. 


'78        THE  RELATION  BETWEEN  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE 

came,  it  meant  the  birth  of  a  primitive  conception  of  causality  in 
respect  to  the  procreative  process.  The  first  discovery  of  the  part 
played  by  the  father  in  the  reproductive  process  led  to  the  strange 
"couvade"  ceremony  among  certain  primitive  peoples,  an  illus- 
tration of  the  crudity  with  which  they  formed  their  first  mental 
tools.  Nevertheless,  it  marks  the  beginning  of  the  displacement 
of  mythological  knowledge  by  scientific  knowledge  in  regard  to  the 
sexual  processes  and  relationships. 

III.      THE   INSTINCTIVE   REACTIONS   ASSOCIATED   WITH   SELF- 
PRESERVATION 

Some  psychologists  would  include  self-preservation  under  the 
instinctive 'behavior  connected  with  the  obtaining  of  food.  If  they 
are  to  be  considered  together,  I  would  prefer  to  include  the  food- 
getting  instinct  under  self-preservation,  because  the  latter  is  the 
more  generic  term  and  might  be  taken  to  include  a  larger  scope.  It 
is  even  possible  to  use  the  term  "self-preservation"  in  a  sense 
wide  enough  to  include  all  instinctive  behavior.  But  in  this  in- 
stance I  propose  to  use  it  in  a  narrower  connotation  as  applying 
to  two  types  of  reaction,  the  aim  of  which  is  to  avoid  dangers  and 
to  overcome  opposition  to  the  normal  operation  of  the  life-processes. 
These  are  flight  or  the  defensive  reaction  with  its  accompanying 
emotional  tone  of  fear,  and  pugnacity  or  the  offensive  reaction  with 
its  concomitant  emotion  of  anger.  These  two  types  of  behavior 
are  the  characteristic  expressions  of  the  instinctive  tendency  toward 
self-preservation.  We  might  say  that  they  are  the  organism's 
way  of  expressing  the  will  to  five  in  the  face  of  circumstances  ready 
to  crush  it.  To  be  sure,  we  may  include  the  instinctive  disposition 
to  procure  food  to  satisfy  the  felt  needs  in  this  organic  will 
to  live.  Indeed  the  instinctive  behavior  of  self-preservation  may 
be  associated  with  many  other  circumstances  of  types  of  behavior. 
Circumstances  connected  with  the  securing  of  food,  with  mating, 
with  procreation,  with  curiosity,  and  with  gregariousness  may  be 
the  stimuli  calling  forth  flight  or  pugnacity,  with  their  emotional 
tones  of  fear  or  anger. 

Starbuck  sees  in  religion  a  response  to  the  instinct  of  self- 
preservation  and  the  desire  for  the  fulness  of  life  on  the  physiological 


INSTINCTIVE  ORIGIN  OF  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE         79 

plane. ^  Hocking,  as  we  have  seen,  identified  the  two  instincts.^ 
Herter  finds  in  religion,  as  well  as  in  music,  painting,  and  litera- 
ture, a  human  product  which  represents  "the  fusion  of  self- 
preservation  and  the  sexual  instincts."^ 

There  is  no  doubt  that  much  of  the  ceremonial  originated  by 
primitive  people  was  designed  to  help  them  in  thus  determining 
to  persevere  in  Hfe,  in  the  struggle  for  existence.  That  fact  may  be 
illustrated  from  almost  any  ceremonial.  Moreover,  the  struggle 
for  existence  Hes  behind  the  evolution  of  both  the  religious  and  the 
scientific  techniques.  Socially  and  mechanically  they  are  designed 
to  help  man  satisfy  the  felt  needs  of  life  in  the  struggle  against  the 
opposing  forces.  Primitive  man's  ceremonial  was  indicative  of  a 
fear  lest  he  should  lose  out  in  the  struggle  for  existence.  The 
ritual  was  an  expression  of  the  felt  emotion,  often  by  a  mimetic 
representation  of  the  desired  result  which  enhanced  the  desired  end 
or  object.  This  factor  in  the  process,  whereby  that  which  was 
felt  would  satisfy  the  need  was  mimetically  enacted  beforehand, 
illustrates  the  indistinguishable  beginnings  from  which  art  and 
religion  originate.  Jane  Harrison  has  presented  the  matter  in 
Ancient  Art  and  Ritual  with  typical  illustrations.'*  Thus  also 
many  of  the  dramatic  representations  which  enter  into  religious 
ceremonial  are  illustrative  of  the  emotion  of  fear  lest  they  should 
not  pass  the  crisis  in  safety.  Miss  Harrison  presents  an  account 
of  a  traveler  in  Euboea  during  Holy  Week  who  was 

struck  by  the  genuine  grief  shown  at  the  Good  Friday  services.  On  Easter 
eve  there  was  the  same  gloom  and  despondency,  and  he  asked  an  old  woman 
why  it  was.  She  answered:  "Of  course  I  am  anxious;  for  if  Christ  does  not 
rise  tomorrow,  we  shall  have  no  corn  this  year."  The  old  woman's  state  of 
mind  is  fairly  clear.  Her  emotion  is  the  old  emotion  ....  fear,  imminent 
fear  for  the  failure  of  food.  The  Christ  again  is  not  the  historical  Christ  of 
Judaea,  still  less  the  incarnation  of  the  Godhead,  proceeding  from  the  Father; 
he  is  the  actual  figure  fashioned  by  his  village  chorus  and  laid  by  the  priests, 
the  leaders  of  that  chorus,  in  the  sepulchre.^ 

'  Starbuck,  The  Psychology  of  Religion,  p.  403. 

'  Hocking,  The  Meaning  of  God  in  Human  Experience,  p.  106. 

3  Herter,  The  Biological  Aspect  of  Human  Problems,  p.  285. 

4  See  pp.  24-27,  where  she  refers  to  the  prayer-disks  of  the  Huichol  Indians,  which 
as  prayers  may  be  classified  as  ritual,  and  as  decorated  surfaces  are  specimens  of 
primitive  art. 

5/W<f.,  pp.  73,  74. 


8o        THE  RELATION  BETWEEN  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE 

Farther  down  in  the  scale  of  civilization  the  fear  element  is  to 
be  seen  operative  in  many  ways.  It  is  tied  up  with  animism  in  the 
majority  of  cases.  So  prevalent  is  this  element  of  fear  in  the  primi- 
tive forms  of  religion  that  many  have  seen  in  it  the  origin  of  religion. 
Lucretius  said:  "It  is  fear  that  engenders  the  gods."  Thomas 
Hobbes  said:  "The  feare  of  things  invisible  is  the  natural  seede  of 
religion.'"  David  Hume  said:  "The  first  ideas  of  religion  arose 
from  a  common  concern  with  regard  to  the  events  of  life  and  fears 
which  actuate  the  mind."^  Ribot  finds  the  emotion  of  fear  in 
varying  degrees  in  all  religions,  "from  profound  terror  to  vague 
uneasiness,  due  to  the  faith  in  an  unknown,  mysterious,  impalpable 
Power,  able  to  render  great  services,  and,  more  especially,  to  inflict 
great  injuries."^ 

The  source  books  furnish  us  abundant  illustrations  of  the  fear 
motive  in  religion  and  in  other  social  customs.  Mary  H.  Kingsley 
cites  examples  of  the  influence  of  fear  among  the  people  of  Guinea. 
She  describes  it  thus: 

I  have  often  seen  on  market  roads  in  many  districts  but  always  well  away 
from  Europeanized  settlements,  a  little  space  cleared  by  the  wayside,  and 
neatly  laid  with  plantain  leaves,  whereon  were  very  tidily  arranged  various 

little  articles  for  sale Against  each  class  of  articles  so  many  cowrie 

shells  or  beans  are  placed,  and  always  hanging  from  a  branch  above,  or  sedately 
sitting  in  the  middle  of  the  shop,  a  little  fetish.  The  number  of  cowrie  shells 
or  beans  indicates  the  price  of  the  individual  articles  in  the  various  heaps, 
and  the  little  fetish  is  there  to  see  that  anyone  who  does  not  place  in  the  stead 
of  the  articles  removed  their  proper  price,  or  who  meddles  with  the  tiU,  shall 
swell  up  and  burst. '' 

The  element  of  fear  led  not  only  to  a  socializing  attitude  toward 
the  extra-human  environment,  but  the  mechanical  attitude  also 
was  developed  in  the  struggle  of  life  to  dominate  in  the  face  of 
dangers  and  crises.  This  is  exemplified  in  the  use  of  magic,  counter- 
magic,  and  sorcery  as  techniques  which  were  thought  to  furnish 

'  Cf.  Thomas  Hobbes,  Leviathan,  p.  73. 

^  Quoted  by  Leuba,  The  Psychological  Origin  and  Nature  of  Religion,  p.  81. 

3  Ribot,  Psychologie  des  Sentiments,  4th  ed.,  1903,  p.  309. 

•»  Mary  H.  Kingsley,  West  African  Studies,  pp.  248,  249.  Other  illustrations  may 
be  found  in  Frazer,  The  Golden  Bough;  Tylor,  Primitive  Culture;  Spencer  and  Gillen, 
The  Northern  Tribes  of  Central  Australia. 


INSTINCTIVE  ORIGIN  OF  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE         8i 

the  individual  with  a  mechanism  for  controlling  those  environ- 
mental forces  which  were  otherwise  able  to  work  him  ill.  The 
formula  of  the  magician  or  sorcerer  as  a  mechanism  of  this  type  is 
illustrated  in  the  life  of  the  Todas  of  South  India,  whose  whole 
social  fabric  is  bound  up  with  the  Hfe  of  the  buffaloes.  An  example 
of  the  sorcerer's  formula  is  as  follows: 

For  the  sake  of  Pithiotea,  Om,  Teikirji  and  Tirshti,  by  the  power  of  the 
gods,  if  there  be  power;  by  the  gods'  country,  if  there  be  a  country;  may  his 
calves  perish;  as  birds  fly  away,  may  his  buffaloes  go  when  the  calves  come  to 
suck;  as  I  drink  water,  may  he  have  nothing  but  water  to  drink;  as  I  am 
thirsty,  may  he  always  be  thirsty;  as  I  am  hungry,  may  he  also  be  hungry: 
as  my  children  cry,  so  may  his  children  cry;  as  my  wife  wears  only  a  ragged 
cloth,  so  may  his  wife  wear  only  a  ragged  cloth.' 

When  the  sorcerer  is  uttering  this  incantation  he  holds  in  his 
hand  five  small  stones  tied  together  by  a  hair  and  all  tied  in  a  cloth. 
Then  they  are  hidden  in  the  thatch  of  the  house  of  the  man  on  whom 
he  desires  the  misfortunes  to  fall.  Thus  satisfaction  for  the  instinct 
for  self-preservation  is  sought  by  a  mechanical  means  which  is 
supposed  to  operate  in  removing  the  danger  which  the  individual 
fears  is  imminent.  As  we  have  observed  in  analogous  circum- 
stances, the  breakdown  of  the  magical  conception  of  causality  was 
what  led  to  the  search  for  a  scientific  explanation  and  a  scientific 
technique. 

The  instinct  of  self-preservation  reacts  at  other  times  in  pug- 
nacity, and  this  is  the  activity  which  is  basal  to  war.  Sometimes 
fear  enters  and  may  serve  either  to  stimulate  the  anger  and  fighting 
power  or  at  other  times  to  inhibit  it.  Professor  Ames  has  rightly 
emphasized  war  as  one  of  the  occasions  giving  rise  to  the  ceremonial. 
"In  carrying  out  any  interest  savage  tribes  usually  find  innumer- 
able occasions  for  war.  The  war  ceremonies  are  therefore  much 
in  evidence.  They  consist  of  councils,  assemblages,  decorations, 
fasts,  parades,  manoeuvres,  dances,  triumphal  processions,  feasts."^ 

Tylor  points  out  how  these  savage  races  create  divinities  for 
special  functions,  including  war.  One  of  the  numerous  illustrations 
which  he  records  is  cited:  "Areskove,  the  Iroquois  War-god,  seems 
to  be  himself  the  great  celestial  deity;   for  his  pleasant  food  they 

'  W.  H.  R.  Rivers,  The  Todas,  pp.  256-58.  ^  Op.  cit.,  p.  75. 


82        THE  RELATION  BETWEEN  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE 

slaughtered  human  victims,  that  he  might  give  them  victory  over 
their  enemies;  as  a  pleasant  sight  for  him,  they  tortured  the  war- 
captives;  on  him  the  war-chief  called  in  solemn  council,  and  the 
warriors,  shouting  his  name,  rushed  into  the  battle  he  was  surveying 
from  on  high."' 

But  man  did  not  depend  exclusively  on  the  spirit  world  to  help 
him  to  win  his  battles.  His  need  for  self-preservation  urged  him 
to  seek  mechanical  means  also.  At  first  he  found  his  implements 
and  tools  and  utensils  and  weapons  in  nature.  Nature  provided 
him  with  the  grubbing-stick  to  enable  him  to  handle  the  soil,  with  a 
round  stone  to  serve  as  a  hammer,  with  a  cave  or  a  thickly  befoliaged 
tree  for  a  shelter,  with  a  rough  stick  for  a  club,  and  with  a  sharp 
stone  for  a  knife  or  a  spearhead.  The  critical  situations  with  which 
he  was  surrounded  led  to  the  birth  of  intelligence  and  selection. 
These  tools  and  weapons  were  improved  and  his  mechanistic  tech- 
nique made  increasingly  efiSicient.  In  proportion  to  his  advance- 
ment in  this  direction,  he  approached  in  the  direction  of  a  scientific 
conception  of  causality. 

IV.      THE    INSTINCTIVE    REACTIONS    STIMULATED    BY    CONTACT    WITH 
THE    STRANGE   AND   THE   UNUSUAL 

It  will  not  be  necessary  for  my  purpose  to  go  into  an  elaborate 
discussion  concerning  the  problem  as  to  whether  curiosity  is  an 
instinct  or  not.  Some  psychologists  deny  that  it  is.  Many  claim 
that  it  is",  among  whom  some  classify  it  as  a  compound  or  secondary 
instinct.  Biologists  are  agreed  that  there  are  in  man  and  in  many  of 
the  lower  animals  tendencies  to  distinctive  reactions  in  the  presence 
of  the  strange  and  the  unusual.  The  behavior  of  dogs,  of  water 
snakes,  and  especially  of  monkeys  is  illustrative.  The  same  dis- 
position is  apparent  in  little  children.  I  do  not  know  of  any  word 
which  my  daughter  has  used  more  frequently  during  her  fourth  and 
fifth  years  than  "Why?"  For  this  type  of  behavior,  whereby 
there  is  a  disposition  to  pry  into  the  strange  and  the  unknown  and 
which  is  indeed  complex,  we  may  apply  the  name  "curiosity"  in  a 
generic  sense.  In  another  connection,  where  the  discussion  was 
concerned  with  the  reference  of  science  to  a   specific  instinct,  a 

'  Tylor,  Primitive  Culture,  II,  306,  307. 


INSTINCTIVE  ORIGIN  OF  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE         83 

brief  statement  was  made  of  the  positions  of  Shand  and  Ribot/ 
The  analysis  of  Mr.  Shand  seems  to  me  to  be  keen.  His  position, 
it  may  be  observed,  is  close  to  that  of  Mr.  McDougall,  whose  dis- 
cussion of  curiosity^  is  good.  The  point  which  has  interest  in  this 
connection  is  that  both  of  these  psychologists  find  curiosity  as  one 
of  the  roots  appearing  both  in  religion  and  science.  Men  of  the 
greatest  intellectual  and  spiritual  vigor  are  men  in  whom  the 
disposition  to  inquiry  is  most  marked.  To  the  impulse  of  curi- 
osity we  surely  "owe  most  of  the  disinterested  labors  of  the 
highest  types  of  intellect.  It  must  be  regarded  as  one  of  the  prin- 
cipal roots  of  both  science  and  religion."^  Mr.  Shand's  theory, 
by  which  he  traces  elements  of  both  religion  and  science  to  curi- 
osity, has  already  been  stated. 

The  result  of  this  prying  into  the  unusual  and  the  unknown,  like 
other  instinctive  behavior  to  which  we  have  given  our  attention,  has 
been  the  development  of  two  distinctive  attitudes.  One  is  the 
attempt  to  estabHsh  a  personal  relationship  with  the  power  which 
the  mind  of  man  has  posited  as  an  animus  in  the  unknown.  This 
is  a  religious  conception  because  it  is  a  socializing  concept  and  man 
tries  to  establish  communion  with  this  power.  It  is  a  prescientific 
concept  because  it  is  an  effort  to  explain  the  inexplicable  by  refer- 
ence to  a  First  Cause.  Such  an  idea  finds  expression  among  many 
primitives,  such  as  the  Dakota  Indians'  wakan,  the  Polynesian 
mana,  and  the  Algonquins'  manitou.  We  have  an  expression  of  the 
same  attitude  in  a  more  sophisticated  environment  in  the  concept 
of  an  Unknowable  presented  by  Herbert  Spencer.  The  desire  to 
pry  into  the  sphere  beyond  experience,  the  meta-empirical  or  meta- 
physical, is  accompanied  by  the  effort  to  establish  social  relation- 
ship therewith,  or  an  element  of  mysticism. 

The  other  attitude  is  evidenced  in  the  insatiable  desire  to  add  to 
the  stock  of  human  knowledge  by  the  paths  of  investigation  and 
experimentation.  It  is  the  basis  of  many  of  the  most  brilliant 
achievements  of  the  human  race.  It  has  led  to  our  scientific  con- 
ception of  causation  and  mechanical  control  through  its  accompany- 
ing technique.     It  has  retired  much  that  is  magical  and  many 

'Pp.  67,  68,  above. 

'  An  Introduction  to  Social  Psychology  (loth  ed.;  Boston,  1916),  pp.  57-59,  315-20. 

*  Shand,  op.  cit.,  p.  59. 


84        THE  RELATION  BETWEEN  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE 

animistic  conceptions  through  the  splendid  discoveries  which  it  has 
made  possible. 

In  this  connection  it  is  of  interest  to  note  that  the  mystical 
temperament  is  more  characteristic  of  people  in  tropical  climates 
than  of  those  in  the  temperate  zones,  whereas  the  scientific  tempera- 
ment has  had  a  richer  development  in  the  temperate  climes.  It 
leads  to  the  conclusion  that  among  the  stimuli  which  affect  the 
reactions  of  the  organism  the  climatic  forces  play  an  active  r61e. 
The  warmer  the  climate,  the  greater  the  ennui,  and  ennui  is  no 
friend  to  science.  At  the  same  time,  the  warmer  climates  have 
given  birth  to  more  mystical  types  of  religion,  as  witness  Hinayana 
Buddhism,  the  bhakti  development  of  Hinduism,  the  Sufi  sect  of 
the  Mohammedans,  and  the  ascetic  ideal  of  Christianity  developing 
on  Egyptian  soil.  Theologies  or  scientific  treatments  of  religious 
development  have  largely  originated  in  the  temperate  climes  where 
the  climatic  conditions  seem  to  favor  the  development  of  a  colder, 
more  objective  type  of  intellectual  acumen.  So  also  the  larger 
developments  of  the  other  sciences  have  had  their  history  in  the 
temperate  zone,  and  particularly  in  the  north  temperate  zone. 

V.      THE   INSTINCTIVE   REACTIONS   CONNECTED   WITH 
GREGARIOUSNESS 

Psychologists  are  not  in  perfect  unanimity  as  to  whether  gre- 

gariousness  is  an  instinct  or  not.     Sometimes  it  is  interpreted  as 

intelligent  behavior  growing  out  of  the  needs  created  by  the  hunger 

and  sex  instincts.^    Those  who  argue  for  the  instinctive  character 

of  gregariousness  refer  to  such  phenomena  in  the  lower  animals  as 

the  swarming  of  bees,  migrations  of  birds,  colonies  of  ants,  packs 

of  wolves,  herds  of  deer,  flocks  of  sheep,  droves  of  cattle,  shoals  of 

fishes,  and  the  like.     Among  primitives  the  characteristic  form  of 

life  is  the  group  life  of  a  clan  or  a  tribe.     In  many  cases  the  unity 

of  the  group  is  preserved  by  means  of  a  totem  animal  with  which  the 

life  of  the  group  is  identified.     Among  children  the  disposition  to 

form  cliques  and  gangs  is  further  evidence  of  this  tendency.     The 

disposition  for  large  numbers  of  people  to  herd  in  towns  and  cities 

is  another  link  in  the  chain  of  evidence. 

'  Ames  and  Thomas  find  the  origin  of  the  social  bond  in  the  sexual  life.     See 
Ames,  The  Psychology  of  Religious  Experience,  p.  37;  Thomas,  Sex  and  Society,  p.  56. 


INSTINCTIVE  ORIGIN  OF  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE         85 

From  the  biological  point  of  view  the  evidence  points  to  the 
belief  that  there  are  certain  co-ordinations  of  reflexes  which  have 
been  neurally  integrated  in  such  a  way  that  the  behavior  is  service- 
able in  helping  not  only  the  individual  but  the  group  in  the  struggle 
for  existence,  i.e.,  serviceable  for  co-operation.  Professor  Brooks 
has  shown  convincingly  that  a  study  of  the  adaptations  that  are 
developed  in  the  various  species  leads  to  the  conclusion  that  such 
adaptations  are  ''for  the  good  of  the  species  and  not  for  the  indi- 
vidual" as  such.  Moreover,  he  argues  that  "the  law  is  universal, 
but  since  the  welfare  of  the  species  is  usually  identified  with  that  of 
the  constituent  individuals  it  is  not  obvious  unless  the  good  of  the 
species  demands  the  sacrifice  of  the  individuals."  The  general 
law  of  nature  which  refers  the  properties  of  all  living  things  to  a 
social,  utiHtarian  basis  affords  an  explanation,  he  claims,  for  such 
varied  gregarious  activities  as  the  migrations  of  salmon  and  the 
altruistic  moral  sense  of  man.'' 

The  question  at  issue  is  as  to  which  is  the  dominant  principle  in 
biological  evolution,  struggle  or  co-operation.  Does  the  struggle 
for  existence  mean  a  ruthless  struggle  in  which  only  the  fittest 
individuals  survive,  and  the  less  fortunate  are  destroyed  by  cruel 
competition?  There  are  some  phenomena  in  nature,  such  as  the 
struggle  between  different  species  of  ants  for  mutual  extermination, 
which  afford  evidence  that  certain  biologists  consider  to  be  sufficient 
for  the  adoption  of  mutual  struggle  as  a  principle  of  biological 
evolution.^  But  the  evidence  seems  to  point  more  conclusively  in 
the  direction  of  the  principle  of  mutual  aid.  There  is  more  of  co- 
operation than  of  cruel  competition  among  the  lower  animals  as 
well  as  in  human  society,  and  the  biological  justification  for  making 
sociability  a  law  of  nature  is  quite  as  sound  as  the  argument  for 
mutual  struggle.  The  struggle  for  existence  is  not  to  be  inter- 
preted as  a  struggle  to  exterminate  the  unfit,  but  as  a  collective 
struggle.  Gregariousness  is  the  rule  in  animal  behavior,  and  not 
the  exception.  Association  is  to  be  seen  in  every  stage  of  the  evolu- 
tionary process.     Decay  and  extermination  are  phenomena  much 

'W.  G.  Brooks,  The  Foundations  of  Zoology,  pp.  11 7-19. 

'  Cf.  the  argument  of  the  German  biologist  in  "Headquarters  Nights"  by  Vernon 
Kellogg  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  August,  191 7.  Also  Kropotkin,  Mutual  Aid,  A 
Factor  in  Evolution,  chap.  i. 


86        TEE  RELATION  BETWEEN  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE 

more  characteristic  of  unsociable  than  of  gregarious  animals. 
"Students  of  animals  under  domestication  have  shown  us  how  the 
habits  of  a  gregarious  animal,  taken  away  from  his  kind,  are  shaped 
in  a  thousand  details  by  reference  to  the  lost  pack  which  is  no 

longer  there It  is  a  strange  thing,  this  eternal  hunger  of  the 

gregarious  animal  for  the  herd  of  friends  who  are  not  there.  "^ 
There  is  good  reason  to  believe  that  the  non-social  animal  is  a 
decadent  type,  the  gregarious  animal  being  antecedent  and  truer 
to  type. 

The  collective  activities  of  the  lower  animals  are  almost  as  varied 
as  in  the  case  of  primitive  man.  The  animals  co-operate  with 
others  of  the  same  species  for  warding  off  inclement  weather, 
guarding  against  danger,  fighting,  playing,  dancing,  singing,  obtain- 
ing nutriment,  migrating,  procreating,  and  for  the  elimination  of 
competition.  So,  too,  primitive  man  lives  an  associated  life.  He 
is  never  characterized  by  individualism,  but  frequently  by  com- 
munism. The  most  primitive  people  observable,  such  as  the  Todas 
of  South  India,  the  Bushmen  of  South  Africa,  and  the  aborigines  of 
Australia,  show  a  well-developed  tendency  to  sociality. 

The  higher  up  we  proceed  in  the  scale  of  culture  and  sophistica- 
tion, the  more  evidence  do  we  see  of  man's  social  nature  and  the 
more  complex  become  the  co-ordinations  of  men.  Among  mam- 
mals, the  nearest  akin  biologically  to  man,  association  is  present, 
but  the  organizations  are  developed  very  meagerly  in  comparison 
with  man.  Where  the  gregarious  tendencies  are  most  highly 
cultivated,  there  appears  a  better  foundation  for  happiness  and 
morality.  Duty,  morality,  culture,  happiness,  love,  sacrifice, 
service,  truth,  religion— these  are  all  terms  meaningless  apart  from 
social  relations. 

We  have,  therefore,  a  biological  justification  for  using  the  word 
"  gregariousness"  as  a  generic  term  for  all  the  instinctive  reactions 
which  are  serviceable  to  the  group  in  the  struggle  for  existence. 
Gregariousness  has  not  always  been  regarded  as  an  instinct, 
because  in  the  case  of  "mammals  at  any  rate  the  appearance  of 
gregariousness  has  not  been  accompanied  by  any  gross  physical 

'From  Gilbert  Murray's  lecture  on  "Stoicism,"  quoted  by  H.  G.  Wells  in  God 
the  Invisible  King,  pp.  88,  89. 


INSTINCTIVE  ORIGIN  OF  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE         87 

changes  which  are  obviously  associated  with  it."^  On  the  other 
hand  the  cumulative  results  of  gregariousness  are  so  great  as  to 
really  overbalance  the  most  pronounced  structural  variations,  so 
that,  as  Trotter  points  out,  we  find  a  state,  frequently  thought  of  as 
an  acquired  rather  than  as  a  congenital  mode  of  behavior,  "capable 
of  enabhng  the  insect  nervous  system  to  compete  in  the  complexity 
of  its  powers  with  that  of  the  higher  vertebrates."^  One  might 
say  that  the  whole  structure  is  such  that  its  functions  and  adapta- 
tions are  quite  as  serviceable  to  the  species  as  to  the  individual,  and 
that  includes  the  co-ordination  and  integration  by  the  nervous 
system  of  reflexes;  so  that  we  are  justified  in  urging  that  gregarious 
behavior  is  instinctive  to  the  human  organism  as  well  as  to  the 
lower  animals. 

The  psychologist  today  is  emphasizing  as  never  heretofore  the 
significance  of  gregariousness.  Since  man  is  a  social  animal,  all 
psychology  is,  of  necessity,  the  psychology  of  a  social  animal. 
There  is  no  human  psychology  of  an  unadulterated  individualism, 
since  man  as  a  solitary  animal  does  not  exist.  On  that  account 
Professor  Cooley  is  inclined  to  believe  that  all  the  instincts  are 
social  and  holds  that  "social  or  moral  progress  consists  less  in  the 
aggrandisement  of  particular  faculties  or  instincts  and  the  suppres- 
sion of  others,  than  in  the  discipHne  of  all  with  reference  to  the 
progressive  organization  of  life."^  He  believes,  however,  that  social 
behavior  is  of  such  a  nature  that  it  may  be  classified  as  instinctive. 
He  says: 

I  take  it  that  the  child  has  by  heredity  a  generous  capacity  and  need  for 
social  feeling,  rather  too  vague  and  plastic  to  be  given  any  specific  name  like 
love.  It  is  not  so  much  any  particular  emotion  or  sentiment  as  the  undiflfer- 
entiated  material  of  many,  perhaps  sociability  is  as  good  a  name  for  it  as  any. 
And  this  material,  like  all  other  instinct,  allies  itself  with  social  experience  to 
form,  as  time  goes  on,  a  diversifying  body  of  personal  thought  in  which  the 
phases  of  social  feeling  developed  correspond,  in  some  measure,  to  the  com- 
plexity of  life  itself.^ 

The  reference  of  religion  to  gregariousness  may  be  substantiated 
by  an  abundance  of  material.     It  has  been  noted  already  that  in 

»  W.  Trotter,  Instincts  of  the  Herd  in  Peace  and  War,  p.  19.         ^  Ibid.,  p.  20. 

3  Cooley,  Human  Nature  and  the  Social  Order,  p.  12.  ^  Ibid.,  pp.  50,  51. 


88        THE  RELATION  BETWEEN  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE 

primitivity  human  life  is  a  group  life,  so  that  human  interests  and 
human  needs  are  all  tinged  with  a  social  element.  Men  went  in 
groups  to  hunt  and  fish.  Women  went  in  groups  to  gather  fruits. 
Men  carried  on  war  as  groups.  The  group  camped  together,  lived 
together,  worked  together,  played  together,  fought  together,  and 
together  they  carried  out  their  mimetic  dances  and  other  ceremo- 
nials. There  would  never  have  arisen  a  ceremonial  or  a  cult  had 
life  been  always  and  only  individualistic.  The  struggle  for  exist- 
ence was  a  social  struggle,  calling  for  co-operation  on  all  sides. 
The  connection  between  the  gregarious  tendency  and  the  social 
life  is  so  close  that,  as  we  have  seen,  some  psychologists  and  sociolo- 
gists find  its  origin  there.  Thus  the  need  for  food,  the  business 
of  mating  and  procreating,  the  urge  toward  self-protection  and 
preservation  by  means  of  war,  and  the  search  for  a  larger  life  by 
prying  into  the  strange — all  these  interests  have  contributed  to 
the  understanding  of  human  life  as  essentially,  indeed  as  instinc- 
tively, gregarious. 

Among  the  evidences  of  the  connection  between  rehgion  and 
gregariousness  we  need  only  remind  ourselves  of  a  few,  such  as 
totemism  and  its  concomitant  ceremonial,  animism  and  its  extension 
of  the  social  bonds  beyond  the  mundane,  group  magic,  ancestor 
worship,  mimetic  dances  and  ceremonials  connected  with  war, 
mimetic  ceremonials  and  sacrificial  rites  connected  with  the  supply 
of  food,  and  ceremonies  connected  with  the  normal  occupation  of 
the  group,  such  as  the  Toda  dairy  rites.  Among  the  more 
sophisticated  races  the  connection  is  no  less  apparent,  as  witness 
the  caste  system  and  Hinduism,  monasticism  in  various  religions, 
religious  festivals,  churches  and  church  services,  revival  meetings, 
sacred  meals  in  the  Greek  and  Christian  religions,  and  social  and 
missionary  propagandism. 

But  in  another  sense  still,  religion  may  be  considered  as  an 
"irradiation,"  to  borrow  Starbuck's  word,  of  the  social  instinct. 
The  reference  of  religion  to  the  limits  of  the  human  group  is  too 
narrow.  The  cult  did  not  arise  solely  as  a  mimetic  expression  of 
group  activities.  It  conveyed  also  the  yearning  of  the  group  to 
enUst  the  aid  of  the  extra-human  power  or  powers  in  whose  existence 
it  believed.     It  was  the  mutual-aid  principle  carried  into  the  life 


INSTINCTIVE  ORIGIN  OF  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE         89 

of  a  people  which  did  not  believe  that  it  was  bounded  by  the  ordi- 
nary human  group  limits.  It  was  the  attempt  of  the  group  to 
make  vocal  its  groping  for  the  power  or  powers  with  which  it  would 
fraternize  and  co-operate.  The  prayer  of  the  religious  man  is 
characteristic,  like  the  call  of  the  bird  that  has  lost  its  mate  or  the 
lonely  animal  that  has  strayed  from  the  herd,  of  a  gregarious  nature.* 
Religion  is  the  socializing  of  man,  the  social  animal,  with  that  which 
is  beyond  human  society. 

On  the  other  hand  the  evolution  of  a  technique  for  mechanical 
adjustment  and  control  has  been  within  the  social  group.  Human 
needs  and  human  struggles  are  social  because  they  are  human. 
Thus  the  urge  for  the  organization  of  a  technique  of  a  mechanistic 
type  as  well  as  of  a  technique  of  a  socializing  character  is  the  urge 
which  man,  the  social  animal,  has  experienced  as  he,  an  individual 
within  a  group,  struggled  for  existence.  The  advance  of  the  sci- 
ences, progress  of  any  kind  of  knowledge,  depends  upon  the  social 
structure.  We  may  interpret  co-operation  as  a  big  historical 
sweep  by  which  the  various  members  of  the  race  in  different  groups 
and  in  different  periods  of  history  have  entered  into  one  another's 
labors  for  the  great  good  of  the  social  whole.  The  heritage  of  a 
scientific  past  is  a  conservation  of  energy,  releasing  the  power  of 
the  present  for  new  tasks,  fresh  achievements.  Progress  is  a  child 
of  gregariousness. 

The  foregoing  discussion  is  not  intended  to  be  an  exhaustive 
treatment  of  instinctive  behavior.  I  think,  however,  that  the 
principal  types  have  been  treated.  The  investigation  has  led  to 
two  conclusions,  the  first  of  which  concerns  the  complexity  of 
instinctive  behavior,  and  the  second  showing  that  the  origins  of 
religion  and  science  are  traceable  to  a  multiple  causality. 

I .  In  dealing  with  the  five  types  of  instinctive  reactions  with 

which  we  were  concerned,  it  was  impossible  to  deal  with  any  one  of 

them  without  finding  one's  self  in  contact  with  behavior  which 

belonged  to  one  or  more  of  the  other  types.     In  the  reactions 

resulting  from  the  efforts  to  obtain  food,  ceremonials  arose  which 

'The  parables  of  Jesus  in  Luke,  chap.  15,  are  illustrative.  Here  religious  need 
and  religious  longing  are  compared  to  the  needs  and  longings  of  the  sheep  which  had 
strayed  from  the  flock,  and  the  prodigal  who  had  abandoned  the  privileges  of  home. 


90        THE  RELATION  BETWEEN  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE 

involved  gregarious  activity.  Crises  in  regard  to  the  supply  of 
food  sometimes  called  forth  flight;  sometimes  pugnacity.  Neces- 
sity of  providing  for  women  and  children  developed  a  social  dis- 
position. The  sexual  life  with  its  mating  and  procreating  activities 
involved  gregariousness,  the  provision  of  food,  curiosity  as  to  the 
reproductive  process,  and  flight  or  pugnacity  in  the  interests  of 
preservation.  Self-preservation  involved  a  demand  for  food,  a 
satisfaction  for  the  normal  sexual  desires,  a  search  into  the  strange 
and  unknown,  and  co-operation.  Curiosity  might  arise  as  to 
whether  a  fruit  were  food  or  poison,  or  over  the  behavior  of 
animals,  and  be  akin  to  fear.  It  also  called  forth  a  group  co- 
operation to  procure  satisfaction  for  its  needs.  Gregariousxiess 
involved  a  group  need  for  food,  the  mating  and  parental  relation- 
ships, a  social  demand  for  preservation,  and  a  common  desire  to 
satisfy  the  human  craving  to  increase  the  stock  of  knowledge  by 
investigation  and  experimentation.  Thus  we  come  back  to  the 
conclusion  that  the  organism  is  a  unity  and  that  the  dominating 
urge  is  its  struggle  for  existence.  The  end  of  each  type  of  instinc- 
tive behavior  appears  to  be  a  co-operation  with  the  other  types  in 
the  human  struggle. 

2.  Furthermore  it  is  the  struggle  for  existence  to  which  the 
instinctive  behavior  is  constantly  contributing  which  has  urged 
man  to  the  formation  of  the  two  techniques  of  control  which  we  call 
religion  and  science.  By  religion  he  seeks  to  establish  social  adjust- 
ments and  relationships  with  the  extra-human  environment,  and 
by  science  he  endeavors  to  create  mechanical  adjustments  and 
relationships  to  that  environment.  The  purpose  of  both  is  the 
same — that  he  may  "have  dominion."* 

'  Gen.  1 :  28. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
THEOLOGICAL  IMPLICATIONS 

The  application  of  the  historico-psychological  method  to  the 
problems  of  the  functions  and  genesis  of  religion  and  science  is  not 
without  certain  results  of  which  the  theologian  must  take  cogni- 
zance. It  is  the  purpose  of  this  chapter  to  summarize  the  signifi- 
cance for  theology  in  relation  to  the  problems  of  authority,  of  the 
task  of  theology,  of  theological  method,  and  of  apologetics. 

It  remains  for  us  to  observe  of  what  significance  it  is  for  theology 
that  we  have  estabHshed  the  genesis  and  functions  of  religion  and 
science  in  the  psycho-physical  organism  and  its  modes  of  behavior. 
For  it  must  be  evident  that  the  significance  is  far-reaching. 

I.  We  have  seen  that  it  is  possible  to  trace  the  origin  of  science 
and  religion  to  certain  typical  methods  of  instinctive  reaction  to 
external  stimuli.  We  are  able  also  to  trace  with  some  degree  of 
clarity  the  development  of  the  attitudes  from  the  instincts.  Thus 
we  have  a  genetic  account  of  both  religion  and  science  as  human 
attitudes.  In  that  way  the  inductive  approach  has  made  it  appar- 
rent  that  the  differentiation  is  not  between  science,  the  human 
creation,  and  religion,  the  heavenly  donation.  Both  are  of  human 
origin  and  both  of  them  function  to  human  needs.  Hence  both 
are  developmental.  We  look  for  the  beginnings  of  religion  as  well 
as  of  science  in  the  behavior  of  primitive  peoples  where  life  is  least 
complex,  and  not  in  an  ecclesiastical  Adam.  We  find  that  their 
function  is  to  meet  the  insistent  needs  of  man  for  control  by  the 
social  and  mechanical  techniques  which  men  have  evolved  in  the 
reHgions  and  sciences.  The  whole  conflict  which  raged  so  long 
between  science  and  theology  was  due  to  the  ecclesiastical  self- 
assurance  that  theology  possessed  all  the  weight  of  divine  authority 
behind  it,  whereas  science  was  an  impostor  of  human  invention. 
If  the  conclusions  of  this  thesis  be  correct,  it  means  that  the 
question  of  authority  must  be  interpreted,  not  in  the  sense  of 

91 


92        THE  RELATION  BETWEEN  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE 

conformity  to  ecclesiastical  standards,  but  with  reference  to 
efficiency  and  ability  in  satisfying  the  needs  of  a  progressing 
humanity. 

2.  The  ecclesiasticizing  of  religion,  which  was  the  work  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  and  the  rationalizing  of  religion,  which  was  attempted 
in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries,  were  both  of  them  of  a 
piece  with  deductive  science.  The  presupposition  was  that  truth 
was  ready-made  and  unalterable.  The  laws  of  science  and  the 
dogmas  of  rehgion  were  alike  everlasting.  Man's  task  was  one  of 
discovery.  What  becomes  of  that  conception  as  we  historically 
and  psychologically  observe  man  in  his  struggle  for  existence  and 
dominion  actually  participating  in  the  making  of  truth  ?  It 
means  that  the  task  of  theology  is  not  simply  the  discovery  and 
classification  of  never-to-be-altered  dogmas,  but  is  creative  and 
serviceable.  It  too  must  accept  the  universal  challenge  to  prove 
its  worth  by  its  ability  to  minister  to  man's  religious  needs. 

In  the  examination  of  the  instincts  it  was  observed  that  the 
findings  of  biology  include  the  modifiability  and  adaptability  of  the 
instincts.  But  in  the  instinctive  reactions  we  have  the  simplest, 
least  complex  type  of  human  behavior.  If  even  the  instincts  are 
modifiable  and  adaptable,  surely  the  life-processes  in  toto  must  be 
likewise.  It  ought  to  be  apparent  that  a  static  theology  cannot 
hope  to  satisfy  a  kinetic  world  in  which  human  nature  itself  is 
always  in  process  of  change.  The  future  of  theology  is  tied  up 
with  the  recognition  of  its  creative  task  as  a  ministrant  to  an 
evolving  life. 

Theology  is  an  interpreter  of  religion.  Its  purpose  is  instru- 
mental and  functional  rather  than  dictatorial  and  dogmatic.  The 
only  adequate  criterion  for  testing  and  revising  theology  must  be 
an  appreciation  of  religion  as  we  study  it  in  actual  social  experience. 
The  theology  of  the  experience  of  an  age  of  feudahsm  cannot  do 
justice  to  the  experiences  of  an  age  of  democracy.  It  was  out  of  the 
question  that  Anselm  and  Aquinas  should  write  a  theology  for  all 
time.  Theology  is  always  in  the  making  even  as  religion  itself  is 
always  in  the  making,  or,  still  more  fundamentally,  as  human  life 
is  conceived  in  terms  of  process.     The  theological  task  is  never  com- 


THEOLOGICAL  IMPLICATIONS  93 

plete;  so  that  a  study  of  the  religious  life  as  evolving  from  the 
instinctive  life  constitutes  a  challenge  for  theology  to  face  the  situa- 
tion in  a  time  when  experimental  science,  democracy,  war,  indus- 
trial expansion,  and  rapid  transportation  have  created  a  new  world 
with  social,  ethical,  and  religious  problems  demanding  the  creative 
efforts  of  serious-minded  men. 

3.  The  biocentric  theory  of  the  genesis  and  function  of  religion 
and  science  involves  important  consequences  for  the  student  of 
theological  method.  If  the  criterion  be  biocentric,  then  the  demand 
is  for  co-operation  between  the  two  disciplines  in  the  interests  of  the 
highest  good  for  life.  That  means  that  theology  becomes  more  ethical 
in  proportion  as  it  becomes  scientific.  Ritschi,  as  we  have  seen, 
tried  to  protect  religion  by  saying  that  it  is  independent  of  science, 
and  he  argued  that  collisions  occur  only  when  a  law  of  science, 
which  obtains  in  the  narrower  field  of  nature,  is  erected  into 
a  world-law.  His  faculty  psychology  and  dualism  worked  hand 
in  hand.  But  the  development  of  the  organism  as  a  unity  suggests 
the  impossibility  of  making  such  sharp  lines  of  demarcation  between 
the  religious  and  scientific  interests  that  the  one  can  develop  regard- 
less of  the  other.  In  that  way  theology  may  be  protected  against 
the  danger  of  making  statements  which  would  be  annulled  by  the 
known  findings  of  science.  The  purpose  of  the  theological  doctrine 
is  as  truly  functional  as  the  scientific  theorem.  The  needs  of  life 
demand  of  each  of  them  a  regard  for  the  other. 

4.  The  apologetic  possibilities  of  theology  are  immensely 
increased  by  the  conclusions  of  this  thesis.  Some  attention  was 
given  to  the  positivistic  movement  in  its  leading  representative, 
Auguste  Comte.  It  was  Comte's  contention  that  the  history  of 
man  begins  with  a  mythological  stage,  passes  through  a  metaphysical 
stage,  and  is  entering  upon  a  positive  stage.  At  the  bottom  we  have 
cultureless  religion,  and  at  the  top  we  shall  have  religionless  culture. 
So  also  M.  Guyau  in  his  Non-Religion  of  the  Future  argued  that 
civilization  was  moving  toward  a  higher  plane  where  it  would  be 
independent  of  religion.  Thus  these  positivistic  writers  argued 
for  the  ultimate  disintegration  of  religion.  But  if  religion  be  a 
social  attitude  toward  the  extra-human  environment  having  its 


94        THE  RELATION  BETWEEN  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE 

roots  in  the  instinctive  life,  as  we  have  shown,  we  have  an  argument 
for  its  ineradicability  and  against  any  liability  of  corrosion.  There 
will  have  to  be  a  much  greater  modification  in  man's  way  of  func- 
tioning than  has  yet  taken  place  before  religion  is  in  danger  of 
passing  away. 

The  evolutionistic  monism  of  Haeckel  and  Ostwald  was  another 
effort  to  deny  to  religion  any  legitimate  sphere.  Their  attempt 
was  to  work  out  a  monistic  system  on  the  basis  of  science  which 
should  do  everything  for  Kfe  that  religion  has  done  in  the  past. 
Their  work  was  based  on  the  fundamental  misconception  that 
religion  deals  only  with  the  supernatural,  and  is  therefore  retired 
when  scientific  causality  upsets  miracle.  But  the  work  that  was 
done  by  Hoffding  is  the  best  defense  against  such  an  attack.  He 
showed  that  the  whole  question  of  miracle  was  due  to  a  confusion 
of  the  religious  and  scientific  tasks.  When  we  conceive  of  religion 
as  an  evaluatory  attitude  as  against  the  explanatory  attitude  of 
science,  we  see  at  once  that  the  relegation  of  the  question  of  miracle 
to  the  domain  of  the  scientist  is  the  most  scientific  procedure,  since 
science  deals  with  causes,  while  it  emancipates  religion  for  its  real 
task  of  evaluating  and  interpreting  the  phenomena  of  experience 
in  terms  of  our  cosmic  relationships. 

Naturahsm  has  sometimes  attacked  religion  on  the  ground  that 
it  is  too  metaphysical.  All  the  truth  of  which  we  can  be  sure, 
says  the  naturalist,  is  that  which  we  can  prove  in  the  laboratory. 
Thus  the  differentiation  is  made:  religion  deals  with  the  meta- 
physical and  hypothetical,  whereas  science  deals  with  the  physical 
and  demonstrable.  This  is  made  the  basis  for  a  scientific  agnosti- 
cism as  to  the  questions  of  God,  freedom,  and  immortality.  Reli- 
gion has  at  least  the  argumentum  ad  hominem  that  science  too  has 
its  metaphysics  in  the  aeons,  electrons,  atoms,  and  molecules  of 
the  scientist.  When  scientists  attempt  to  furnish  a  philosophy 
of  Hfe  which  shall  take  the  place  of  and  function  for  us  as  religion 
has  done  in  the  past,  they  become  every  whit  as  metaphysical  and 
hypothetical  as  any  religionist.  The  naturalistic  theories  are  all 
of  them  capable  of  criticism  at  this  point,  as  Professor  Ward  has 
shown  in  his  epoch-making  critique  of  Naturalism  and  Agnosticism. 


THEOLOGICAL  IMPLICATIONS  95 

Moreover,  the  new  emphasis  in  religion  on  function  as  against  on- 
tology means  that  the  force  of  this  attack  is  largely  spent  on  a 
phantom  enemy. 

The  persistence  of  religion,  the  truth  of  religion,  the  adequacy 
of  doctrinal  statements,  and  the  uniqueness  of  Christianity— these 
are  all  of  them  questions  with  which  we  deal  functionally  today. 
Our  defense  is  in  terms  of  their  serviceableness  to  life  rather  than 
their  superior  origin.  The  imperishable  values  are  the  achieved 
values  rather  than  the  donated.  Against  such  an  epistemology 
science  has  no  case,  and  let  us  hope  for  her  own  sake  that  she  desires 
none. 


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